Chive Blossom Vinegar

I love blogs, seriously awesome information can be found on blogs! I found a recipe for chive blossom vinegar. It goes like this: acquire vinegar (I used white wine) and fight some bees for chive blossoms. I don't mind saying I stole some from the side of a neighbors yard... come on they were infested with weeds and grass and looked like crap! I got some chive blossoms willingly from Neighbor Kara and Mom.

Next, wash chive blossoms and then get them as dry as possible (excess water will cloud the vinegar). They can be run through a salad spinner, I windmilled mine in a towel and then left them outside to dry out for about an hour.

Now stuff them in a jar and cover with acquired vinegar. I placed a plastic lid and a cup on top of the chives so they would stay under the vinegar.  This jar didn't have a lid so I made a make shift one with a plastic top a cloth towel and rubber band.

In about two weeks or when you like the smell and taste of the vinegar ( I suppose you could go up to 4 weeks) strain the blossoms out through a fine mesh to get every last scrap.

The vinegar will be a vibrant pink/red color and smell of garlicky chives! I've used it on salads this spring with awesome dressing results.

Apiary Expansion

I promised a long post and this one is sure going to be. Thursday of last week Jake and I drove 6 hours (round trip) to pick up some bees. We decided on 3 nuc's which are small pre-started hives for example:

A nuc (pronounced nuke) looks like this: Sometimes wood, though the ones we got were a waxed cardboard container with 5 frames of bees, brood, honey, pollen and a queen. A mini, already started, ready to go hive.

A box of bees looks like this: Roughly 3 pounds of bees and a queen. No babies, honey or any pre-started frames. (Below picture is from our bee install spring 2010)

So 3 nuc's, which means we'll now have 3 hives instead of just the one. Last year we had ordered 2 boxes of bee's but only one stayed, the other swarmed. But I digress...


The weather was lovely, much nicer than the weather we left back in Cheney. On our way we drove as close as I've ever come to commercial wind towers. Often they are quite a way's away on top of some distant hill top but instead we drove right by them.

The directions from Google were wrong but we only got lost once, and thankfully got it all figured out. The drive down was uneventful but coming back was nerve wracking. Our car has no trunk, so the girls were right there in the car with us. Trying to think ahead I brought a giant green rubermaid tub with us in which to place the nucs. Only one fit.
















The others were wrapped in 2 garbage sack's and a large blanket respectively.  Well of course some got out! How else would the adventure with 60,000+ bees in the back of an open car go!? Jacob spent about half of the trip with his bee jacket on. It's especially scary since I've never been stung and don't have any idea if I am allergic. Being in the middle of freaking nowhere with that many stinging creatures makes for lots of adrenaline. We only had to stop once just to adjust the blankets and tubs, and thankfully neither of us got stung.

We got home around 2:30pm jacked up and ready to get these girls out of the car. The install went smooth because it was mostly a matter of taking the frames out of the nuc and placing them into the hive.

All of the hives had a good population, we saw capped brood and lots of pollen. The only downside to buying bee's this way is the frames. The frames have a plastic foundation that dictates what size the bee's can make the cells, all our frames from last year are foundationless meaning we let the bee's draw out the comb as nature intended. We get smaller bee's but overall they are healthier.

This frame in the middle left side or upper right shows the foundation it's a yellow color. We intend to slowly faze these out, our girls go au naturel.

Our master beekeeper has a lab where he tests your bees from trachea mites to nosema, so we took samples. He needs 100 bees to test to get an average, collecting 100 writhing bees in a mason jar is no easy task. So Jim (master beekeeper) came up with the measurement, 1 inch of bees in the bottom of a mason jar roughly translates to 100 bees. So our 3 hives 100 test subjects are with Jim now and we should know something by early next week. Hopefully we'll get a clean bill of health.

We moved our bee yard to the back of the garden so that the hives will get more year round sun. It used to rest on the west side of the house which goes into shade around 2 pm. In the new location they'll get sun until roughly 6-7 pm. A considerable difference we hope helps in the long run. Jacob also redesigned and built some long Langstroth hive's, essentially all 20 frames of a traditional hive rest horizontally instead of rising vertically by stacking extra boxes on top. Similar to a top bar style hive, only with frames not just a top bar.

I went outside this afternoon and saw a major orientation flight in session. Orientation flights help the newly hatched or inside bee's figure out where there hive is in space and in relation to the sun. It's quiet impressive to watch.

See how they are all facing the hive, might need to make it bigger to tell. But regardless they are checking out the new digs. We also give our hives an address to help them locate the correct hive, so we've got "dots" and "stripes" hives. I know it doesn't look it in the picture but they face opposite directions. Dots faces east and stripes faces west. It's best if the hive faces east toward sunrise, but we didn't have the room to place them side by side.

Here's a video I took of orientation flights, it's only 40 seconds long.

Making Lard

I promise I'll do a bee update but with tons of pictures and videos it's a long story. However the girls are safely transported and enjoying their new digs.

Mom and I ordered a half-a-hog from Rocky Ridge Ranch. In a quest to use more of the hog than most people I asked for all the organ meat and all the fat to process into lard.  I know Lard, right? Ewww! Ok, but as fat's go it is the most like our own and so easily processed by our bodies. I have been thinking about trying to get the least processed and most gas efficient fats as possible. Turning fat into lard is really easy it turns out.

I got two of these bags of fat weighing roughly 4.5 lb.
















I cubed it and put the fat into a stock pot along with 1/2 c. of water. The water will evaporate and helps the fat not burn and stick to the bottom of the pot.

Left side hasn't been heated yet, the right side is about 15 minutes into melting.

Close up uncooked.

Close up 25 minutes into cooking. See how it just melts.

Almost done. The floaties are called crackles you can eat them, they are like crunchy skin and fat. At this stage they make a crackling sound, hence the name. A word of warning, don't leave the pot because it needs to be stirred frequently.  I thought they tasted similar to bacon but they are really greasy (go figure). I think they might be better with some salt? But I am not desperate for fats so maybe I'll give them to the dog....

I don't have a picture of the straining process since I was by myself, but I lined a wire mesh strainer with several layers of cheese cloth and poured the whole pot through it.  Then ended up with jars that looked like this.

I did have a fiasco with one jar breaking and spilling hot melted lard all over the counter and the floor, after much cursing I got it cleaned up. Ugh!

After about 4-5 hours of cooling it looks like this.

One of the pots I under cooked so the the crackles were a very light brown. The other I cooked until the crackles were a golden brown. The two different pots yielded different smelling lard. The undercooked crackles smells cleaner less like bacon and just like fat or butter. The other smells of bacon or meat maybe, in any case it has a smell. The bacon one I'll use for cooking everyday things, the clean smelling one I'll use in pie's and such (not that I make many pies, but still).

From the one bag of 4.5 lbs of fat I got roughly 3.5 pints of lard. I left expansion space because I wasn't sure if it needed it ( better to be safe than sorry) then I stuck them in the freezer. It should keep for a year+ in there.

I also intend to use the lard for soap making if I can get access to more of it.

Bee hope

Our little band of stragglers may get some sisters and a new monarch. I've found a comercial beekeeper who still has some nuc's left (nuc = bees, queen, and 5 frames of brood/honey, not a box of bee's like last time). However, he is outside of Walla Walla which is around a 3 hour drive one way for us. But. Worth. It.

We're thinking of expanding to 3 hives (provided he has that many), one on this farm and the other 2 on some friends property, just outside of Cheney.  Our scheduled pickup date is next Thursday the 9th.  I won't believe it or start celebrating until those girls are in the car!

Updates to follow....

The Colonies Death

Our bees are dead.

Not entirely but they are as good as dead. This weekend was the first time we had nice enough weather to do a hive check. Upon opening the hive it was clear we had a problem, not many bees.  When we installed our hive package it's roughly 3 lb. of bees or the size of a women's basket ball, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 bee's. Now only about an orange/grapefruit size cluster remained, in numbers of maybe 800-1,000.

Our queen is dead. If we had known she was dead sooner we could have replaced her. But with so few bees in the hive they wouldn't live long enough for the next hatching if we did decide to get a new queen. At this point all we can do is watch the girls keep working while their numbers dwindle to nothing. We're not sure when the monarch died but obviously it was sudden and the girls didn't have time to make a replacement. Had we known back in April we could have prevented this, but the weather was to cold, wet or windy to open up and take a look.

The time to order a package of bees is February- mid-March. Package bee's are delivered April 18th roughly. No bee's for us this year.

Unless we can get a swarm which we are hopeful for, we put an ad on Craig*sList and with luck someone will call.

Bunz are getting big

I set up an outdoor pen for the babies and sometimes adults to play in. Although I noticed that the adults seem really nervous with big eyes and don't move for fear of "discovery" from the evil _________ (fill in the blank, what ever bunz are afraid of.) Since it was so stressful on the adults I've started just sticking to the babies for now.

The little guys don't have any fear of the great out doors or Kai (dog) for that matter. I'll get a video on the next nice day so ya'll can see how they "play" together. Regardless I always leave the green tub in the play pen so if they feel threatened they can run inside.

All 8 babies are in the tub, eyes were shut but my presence made them alert.  They still like to bunny pile which is adorable. I have nicknamed one of the dark brown babies "Tubbers" since it's SO much bigger than the other 7 kids. Obviously someone is a dinner hog.

Black Morel?

My Mom called me yesterday and said "I think I have a morel growing in my yard." This morning I went over and picked said mushroom, I would have to agree with her. It is, I think past good eating age since it's rather rubbery and has obviously been out of the ground for a while.

I've never been morel hunting or eaten them for that matter... since I don't know what I am looking for or really where to look at all. I digress, having done some research on morel's and false morel's I am pretty sure that this is a black morel... (all the pictures get bigger if you'd like a closer look)

The inside is hollow and the mushroom is all one piece (meaning cap and stem are one unit).  I am pretty sure that the only morel look alike is the false morel, but that should be squat and not hollow.  This mushroom stands about 5" tall but I realize morel size is subjective. So any shroomies out there? And if it is a morel.... seriously? It's all by itself in the bark next too my mother's house in the middle of the city.

What a weird spring.

Tater Babies

"The Husband" talking. One of my rare, bi-annual posts.

So last fall, the  "All Blues" (but more appropriately called All Purples) potatoes produced seed pods to my surprise. I've never seen a potato plant do that. The seeds pods were a sphere about the size of a quarter. Around November, I picked up a couple seed pods off the ground that looked to be starting to rot. I wanted to try and save the seeds over winter and plant them in the spring to see what happens.

Jen and I want to start saving seeds to save money but also to reduce our carbon footprint. The less we have shipped to us the better!

So I smashed the seed pods, strained the seeds out, dried the seeds, and put them in a jar on the counter.

About a week and a half ago, I noticed them on the counter and planted them. I covered them with about a quarter of an inch of soil and put them in the window. And to my surprise today, I saw this...

Three of them are growing!!!! I'm so proud I think I shed a tear! I think I threw in about 50 seeds in two small containers so I might have to thin them out. I'm pretty excited about it. I have no idea what will happen. Will they grow potatoes this year? Next year? I don't have a clue. So any input would be appreciated.

So I just had to gush about my new Tater Babies. I'm usually just contributing to the garden by helping Jen in any way I can. So this is my first adventure into growing something myself and of course I chose something totally weird like growing potatoes from seed.

So if this works out, maybe I'll post more than just twice this year!!!

Rabbit Nest Building

Our "baby doe" who is actually named Confetti but we don't call her that, was nest building yesterday. She is due to kindle any day now. This will be her first litter and her instincts so far have been really good. She just seemed so confused so I had to take a video of it. She keeps carrying around a mouth full of straw but she's just not sure what to do with it, or for that matter why she is carrying around straw in the first place.




Baby Doe figured it out a little while later and has since stopped nest building, but she was so cute I just had to share.

The babies are good, to them mom = jungle gym. Ches gets along so well with Kai(dog) that I wonder what would happen if I let them out together. Probably Ches would bite Kai and that would be the end of the happy friendship. Still, it's nice having a well trained dog who LOVES everything, accept the chickens they scare her (which is awesome and very funny!)

Double Rainbow on Mother's Day

I know I should've Posted this a week ago but seriously it's finally spring time and the chores are piling up! Anyway last weekend between rainstorms Jake and I were working on the front spiral garden when two giant rainbows appeared. I've posted a ton of videos as of late but guess what here comes one more..

Full double rainbow..


Ive never been able to see the end of a rainbow, it's always way off in the distance. But this time I was able to take a picture of the end.

It ends right there in the field across from our house. How Awesome Is That!?!? I went and looked but didn't find a pot of gold, I was hoping but maybe being able to see the end was my pot of gold?

Happy Spring everyone!(or Happy Fall for those at the other end of the beach ball) :-)

Tartine Bread

I saw this book at the library and picked it up, so far it seems pretty awesome but I haven't tried baking any of the bread recipes yet. But I did find a video that is rather mouth watering.

For the LOVE of bread....

Exploring Bunz

The babies are out of the nestbox now, at 3 weeks old the eyes are open and the squeakers are ready to explore. This video is really dark, since rabbits don't like the heat we have them under our deck, but it makes it really difficult to get a clear picture since the light is so dim. This was taken at 4 pm and totally bright out.... oh well we need a new camera.




Cuteness overload (baby in food dish):

The little squeakers like to climb in and eat the grain, right now they fit perfect inside it. I've seen several of them at it. The world is their jungle gym.

Arbor Day

Last Saturday Me, Jake, Mom and Neighbor Kara all went to the compost fair in Spokane.  They hold the fair every spring and fall. Their are demo's of what to put in compost and what not, types of bins, worm composting and such. It's all very fun and informative, most of which I know since I've been composting somewhat successfully for a while now. The fair was the day after Arbor Day so lots of info, and they were giving away free trees. One stand had maples, oaks, and deciduous type trees. But another gal for the Idaho Forestry Department was giving away Colorado Blue Spruce's which look like this as adults:

The lady gave us each 2 and then asked if we had room to plant them and more, we said yes (because we will eventually) and she gave us a bag of 10, we ended up with 16 trees total. I brought them home and planted them in 1 gallon sized pots, then buried the pots in the ground. I figured this would regulate the root temperature and they would be happier. Thus begins our wind and privacy wall even though they are scarcely 8 inches tall and we have no land yet, oh well no one ever said that I don't plan ahead. 

I have several tree farm spots in my yard that look like this:

Decidedly less impressive than their glorious adult counterpart, but they'll get there... in 10-15 years. *sigh*

adult picture from here.