Spring!

It's time to start some of the slower growing vegetables. I attended a seed starting class at our local garden store a few weeks ago and learned quite a bit. I am so pleased with this store, they have a huge selection of seeds, potatoes (20 organic varieties!), and I've heard starts later in the spring. It's really made me feel at home to have such a nice store with knowledgeable staff. We are still in Oregon, but the weather is different here, wind is an issue, there are new pests and I didn't even know when our frost date was. They gave out a great handout with many different plants and dates of when to start them inside/outside just for Hood River.
Here are some of the things I just planted:

I will do a full seed planting post with all the great tips I learned and I'll show you what Aaron made me for Valentine's Day in a few days once my baby plants are up.

Valentine's Day

I had great hopes and dreams for this Valentine's Day, which is pretty good for me. I would like to be a planner, but I'm just not. But this year was going to be different, I was going to clean the whole house (desperately needed), make cookies and have dinner ready when Aaron got home from work. I even picked up a small gift for him last week.
Well I didn't have a very productive morning. I'll be honest, being unemployed (mostly) is harder than it sounds. I thought I would love having all the time in the world to do whatever I want. But not having any structure to the day (or extra money) is difficult. By afternoon I was having GI issues - something I ate? I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it did not equal productivity.
I DID get cookies made, two kinds even. My mom got me these awesome cookie cutters for V-Day. Aaron requested these cookies so I made them as well. We are really trying to eat healthier. The cookies are essentially vegan, they do have honey, but for me I think they could have used an egg. Or milk. Maybe some ground beef. Okay they weren't that bad, but I would tweak the recipe if I made them again. More dried fruit, more applesauce, more cinnamon and almond butter instead of peanut butter.



I didn't get dinner done in time either, but said the heck with it and we headed to the gym. I had gotten the grocery shopping done so I made chicken fajita filling over rice. We added some plain yogurt for creaminess and a little hot sauce. It was a nice dinner even if it didn't go as planned.


I didn't know what I was going to use for postage on my wedding correspondence, I thought about using Zazzle for custom postage, but it was way too expensive and I didn't know when another coupon code would come out. I feel like we should have our pictures on the Save the Dates for distant family, but instead Amber gave me the idea to use old postage. My mom and I went to the stamp store and with the help of two older men hanging out in the store we quickly picked out a bunch of postage (the store was closing in 20 minutes). I have had so much fun looking through these old stamps and pairing them together on the post cards. I'm excited to go back with more time to pick some more fun stamps out.



I wish they still made stamps like these with all their textures and colors and subject matter.

Weekend Review

It's time to start thinking bees again, this time of year it's important to make sure they have enough food to make it until a nectar flow. It's also a good time to rev them into breeding production so their numbers are high when a nectar flow starts, you do that by feeding them. I mixed pollen with some of their honey thinking I could just smash it together. Wrong, those pollen granules are like pebbles.


Mortar and pestle turned out to be the way to go.


I made pollen patties out of the honey and pollen. Here is the good one.


And the coarser one. The pollen has lots of protein which stimulates brood production.


Then I began making some fondant, this is a good food source when temperatures are still cold. We feed sugar water in the spring and fall when temps are warmer. When it's cold the bees will not leave the hive as much, and because they will not defecate in the hive, you want to give them something with less moisture. They will actually die before defecating in their home. It all started well. 5 cups of water. 15 pounds (yes pounds) of sugar. 3 cups Karo syrup. I did have a hard time dissolving all that sugar and I wish that I had a candy thermometer. My two mistakes: not having all of the ingredients home (Aaron went on a Karo run) and using too small a pan.


This was the result:


What a sticky horrible mess. Of course it boiled over because I was waiting to add the Karo. Ugh. I also should have made a half batch, our tiny sticky kitchen had fondant cooling on every available counter space.




But it all turned out, and now I have a 2 year supply of fondant. We tore into our hives for the first time since September I think, since we took honey. One our hives has had lots and lots of dead bees. We scoop them out every week, and I'm amazed any are left. There were a fair number of bees inside, they had only eaten through one box of honey, so I did not give them fondant, but I did leave a pollen patty for them. We ordered 3 pounds of bees and a queen to re-populate them in April.
Our strong hive was very active and aware of our presence. I've never seen stingers presented to the air before! They had eaten through two boxes of honey, leaving one left. We moved their empty honey box to the top so they can put brood there and I left them some fondant and pollen. Bees always move up, never down. That is why we moved the empty to the top, it should help to prevent them from swarming in the spring by giving them more space. Aaron did get a small sting on the back of his arm unfortunately. Here is the pile of dead bees below our weak hive: Thousands of them.



In chicken news I have trained Camilla to hop up onto my leg to get cracked corn. It's a pretty sweet deal for her, being the underdog. She can have the food all to herself! (She is filthy in this picture, I interrupted a dust bath)


Aaron enjoyed some Camilla eggs for breakfast on Saturday.


These two have been sharing a nest box. What an odd pair. Buffy must be 4 times her size. But they are friends til the end for sure.


Today we headed to Portland to do some wedding registering. I would need a whole other post to discuss my feelings about wedding registries, so I will keep it to myself for now.
Valentine's plans are in the works....

Silk Project

Amber asked me to work on a big silk project for her. More on that to come as I work on it. But tonight I spent some time practicing dyeing smaller pieces of silk since I have never done it. The main piece will be dip dyed to fade, so I wound up the silk on a dowel and slowly lowered it into the dye.


I'm really happy with how this turned out:


I just love the sheen of silk. Ignore the ugly bedspread and junk in the background. We're purging okay? I tried something different on this piece, I rolled it on the diagonal and left the fabric in longer. This piece turned out lighter though, even though I left it in longer. My guess? Silk soaks up dye molecules like crazy, I think there were fewer dye molecules left available after the first silk was dyed. Good to know!


There are also some lines from the process, I will have to try and work on getting those more smooth. They don't really show in these pictures. Meanwhile I have also started working on the quilt I started thinking about like 3 years ago again. Maybe something will happen there!

Etsy

After watching several episodes of Hoarders we have been PURGING. It's amazingly effective. So, in our purging efforts we are selling a large amount of Pyrex, Fire King and other vintage glassware. I am listing them on Etsy as I get photos of them. If you see something you like and live in Salem/Corvallis (hint, hint) let me know I'll pull it and give it to you for a good deal. We are pricing things to move, hopefully.

Guess What Today Is...

It's a five egg day! Guess what that means...we just got one short of a half dozen eggs today. What the heck are we going to do with all of these eggs? In Corvallis we had lots of people we could have sold to, but the few people I know here have chickens! I'm not complaining mind you, but we are going to have to find a good way to sell some of these. At this point I don't think we have enough to advertise, but maybe we can take them into work. The first dozen is free, after that hopefully they will be hooked! Lots of people sell eggs around here though, I don't want to steal anyone's business. Olive laid her first egg a few days ago, and I think it might be similar to having 5 kids...by the 5th you aren't taking too many baby pictures.

From left: Mabel, Buffy, Olive, Bert, Camilla

We have been watching the show Hoarders, has anyone seen this? Oh my, it really sucks you in. We have watched it 3 times and after each show we have gone through the house to purge! We don't want to turn out like some of these people - or any of them actually. Need something to get you going on organizing the house? Watch Hoarders and be amazed how motivating it is!

Vegetarian Hens

The chickens always get excited when I give them treats, but they get frantic when they see that I am giving them meat. I don't know how they know immediately just by looking that is it meat but they do. I think the point of the"vegetarian fed hens" label on egg cartons is that they are not being fed downer cows, but chickens are not meant to be vegetarians. They love worms, bugs and prime rib! They are getting the scraps from Christmas dinner here:

In case you didn't catch it, Buffy is a total spazz. When food is involved she gets tunnel vision and frequently falls on her face running towards it. The other day I was watching out the window when she found a bug or something and began to run around which triggered the others to chase her. Bert got the bug from her and Buffy was not happy. She actually walked up to Bert after the fact, pecked her and pulled out a beakful of feathers! Don't mess with Buffy's treats or you will get her wrath!