Things are really hopping on our homestead!

 Wow! God has certainly blessed us with good food. Our bees are staying incredibly busy and productive and our garden is having probably its best year ever. Thanks to the strength that God provides we have been working hard to take care of everything and put it away to use the rest of the year.

  As far as the bees are concerned, during a very busy first week of August I discovered that they had filled up my very last honey supers. When I bought the hives I got a total of 10 supers thinking that 5 for each hive would probably be plenty. This summer I had one really active hive of bees and then one that was a bit slow. So it had ended up that over the summer I had put 7 supers on the busy hive and the other one had just 3. Well come August both hives were getting what they had filled up. I didn't have an extractor yet and I didn't have any more supers but I also didn't want them to swarm as I knew they had a month of honey production left. I had just had a very busy summer and was not prepared to have such busy bees.

  My Dad and brother Peter came to the rescue and made me an extractor. I had been searching around for ideas on how to do that as to buy one costs upwards of $300 and the ones at the low end my beekeeping mentor did not advise getting. He advised a radial extractor opposed to the cheaper ones where you have to flip the frames mid process to avoid them blowing apart on you. Anyway my Dad and Brother where able to make an extractor using things that my Dad had on hand and less than $20 worth of stuff that I picked up at Menards.

I had first intended to buy a large trash can to use as the base but the ones I found didn't end up having a large enough radius. Dad remembered that he had this barrel around his place (which had originally come from the beekeeping supplier not that far from here) and so I scrubbed it up good and we used that.

 The plans that I had found showed making a wooden radial frame to hold the honey frames in. Dad and Peter with their expertise in welding and metal work decided that a metal frame would work better. Dad went to his scrap pile and they found some perfect light metal to use for that. The only way I was able to help was by scrubbing up again. :-)

Peter trying out the new extractor

Dad had an old ice auger that they used for the long metal piece to go through the middle. Originally they used the ice auger handle as well (as pictured above) that handle didn't work so well so now Dad has replaced it with a short one that works tons better. We are still considering putting gears or a motor on it but the short handle (which just for interests sake I will mention came off of an old dump truck that was parked on Dad's property).

  For draining I found a PVC ball valve at Menards that they were able to screw into a hole that they made on the side of the bottom. Below is a picture that shows Mara using that valve and filling a bottle.

I had never taken frames out of the hive before and I wasn't sure how easy it would be without getting a bunch of bees too and without using a fume board.  It wasn't bad at all though I sure did get the bees buzzing all over! I simply took a frame out and brushed the bees off of it using the bee brush. Then I backed up a few steps and brushed off the ones that returned and then I quickly put it in a covered tote. Using that process I did get a few bees in the tote but not many and since they were busy gorging themselves once I got the tote inside they didn't pose any problem and I quickly got rid of them.

Working on this first batch of honey made me realize how much better I could be organized and how much I have to learn. I was thankful I wasn't getting tested on how unsticky I could stay during the process or anything like that. I was a pretty sticky mess once it was all over and everything I touched was sticky too! I was also pretty tired. Lifting honey supers around especially when some of them are above your head is hard work and cranking an extractor isn't easy either. I should have strong arm muscles (and the kids will too!) by the time honey harvesting is over.

The end result of lots of honey to use is certainly very fun! We are loving having our own honey. It is so much fun to eat, learn to bake with and to share with others.

Our first day's harvest.

Beyond bees and honey we have also been busy with other homesteading activities. This past week was our county fair. We always enjoy entering things in the open class and then going and seeing and getting ideas from what others enter as well. The fair is a very neat way to learn homesteading ideas and be encouraged to try new things out. Here are some pictures from the fair:

Some of the canned goods. I entered green beans and tomatoes in this section.

 I love looking at all the handwork and we also love entering in this section. In the picture above you can see Mara's grey and blue crocheted ski hat (First place!) and below that my striped baby set.

All of the kids entered quite a few things and everybody won some prizes so we had a fun time.

Another activity of last week was making pesto. Last year I made pesto for the first time and loved it so I wanted to make it again. My basil is growing well so I had quite a bit available for use. The pesto was yummy and I hope to make more soon.

This week the garden is still growing busily with cucumbers being one of the top crops. Here is a picture from Monday's harvest: 

 Oh I do love fresh veggies! I have made it my goal to eat garden fresh veggies every night with supper this month and except for when we were out of town I think we have done that so far. The harvests are just getting better too. We will be eating corn soon and I am excited!

 I have also been canning stuff for the winter and be sure to come back to visit here soon as I will be hosting a review and giveaway soon for Tattler canning lids. They are reusable year after year and they are pretty cool!

  Is your homestead a hopping place too? What do you have going on?

Verse for the week

Last night I wrote my Speaks-to-me-Sunday post but then when I went to publish it it disappeared. I am not going to rewrite that whole post but I did want to share the verse. It is one that I have found convicting and motivating and inspiring for a long time and one that I am really trying to focus on this week. I hope you appreciate and gain from it too!

 "In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behaviour of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. You adornment must not be merely external -braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God." 1 Peter 3:1-4

Busy, Busy times!

 The last 7 days have been some of the busiest I ever remember. All the reasons for being busy have been wonderful and fun but when but together they can leave you feeling a bit tired (and not having any time to do any blogging).

  Some of our activities of the last 7 days have been:

~Discovering my bees had filled up their boxes and I didn't have any more to put on. Something needed to be done but I wasn't prepared for that. I will tell you later how my Brother and Dad majorly helped out and our experiences. (And of staying up late at night while getting extremely sticky!)

~Spending time visiting with my visiting brother and his family. (Going berry picking together.)

~My garden is overflowing with produce and weeds!

 ~Doing flowers for a clients wedding here in our town.

~Traveling 6 hours south to attend my little brother's wedding. (And doing flowers for that.)

 It was a fun outdoor wedding with all sorts of personal touches. I had fun helping out by making the guys unique ties (my brother gave me instructions), a table runner for people to sign and pinwheels for the girls hair and the guys shirts.

 Here is all my family except one brother-in-law. (My grandparents on my Mom's side are also in this picture.)

 ~Enjoying an evening with a bunch of old friends after the wedding on Saturday.

 ~Going to the wedding, in yet another town, of a daughter of some of our Friends on Sunday. (And doing flowers for that.)

~Coming home and working hard to get all of our stuff ready to enter at the fair. We dropped them off today and are feeling like doing some relaxing!

I think I might relax by cleaning my super messy house, weeding my garden and canning beans. :-)

New warm mittens!

 While we were on our lengthy road trip I decided I should keep my hands busy with handwork. I finished a baby sweater that I had started over a year ago (I ended up not liking the way the yarn was to work with so I had gotten frustrated with it and skipped over it to do other projects) and then I made some mittens!

I had fun combining some fuzzy green yarn with cream wool yarn to make some mittens that should keep hands quite warm. I doubled the yarn throughout the mitten- sometimes using to strands of cream and sometimes using cream and green.

 I was able to do these mittens all on Sunday as we came home so that was fun to have a quick project like that. I especially like knitting because with a simple project you can look out the window at the passing scenery while you still knit away.

 I have been trying to finish up a bunch of projects lately as our county fair is next week and as usual we want to enter quite a few things.

  What have you been working on lately?

Our jungle garden

The jungle- Wild cucumber is growing all over the right hand corner.

 We came back from a week of vacation to find our garden had turned into a regular jungle! Many of the plants grew at least 2 feet (Corn, Tomatoes, Beans, Cucumbers and Weeds anyway!). There were weeds everywhere but we also discovered that the corn was tasseling, there were little zucchinis, a bunch of little peppers, tomatoes and tomatillas were looking good and the beans and peas were in desperate need of being picked.

 We even have a tomato that is almost ripe. There is plenty of basil to be made into pesto, The herbs are growing a lot and the onions are big! It is so fun to see just how much a garden can grow!

 We picked some of our beans today (maybe half) and got two gallons. I shared some with my parents and now I need to find time to can some as well.

 The bees have also been doing well. I haven't really checked in the hives since we got back (I wanted to today but when I had time it was sprinkling) but before we left on our trip I had needed to add 2 more honey supers (the boxes with frames) to Catnip Castle (one of our hives) since they already had 5 full. The other hive- Moonbeam Manor isn't doing as well and only has 3 supers on but I think we will be getting plenty of honey. I am actually out of supers now and I am pretty sure I will need more honey space for the big hive. I am trying to decide if I should make another super box (as I do have extra frames to go into it) or just go ahead and extract some honey (I still need to get an extractor!) and then put the emptied supers back on.

This evening we went out to my parents and picked around 2 gallons of raspberries. I am hoping we can avoid going grocery shopping this month and just make use of all the food the is growing so abundantly around us.

How is your garden growing?

Our trip to Glacier National Park {We can just say "Wow God, You are amazing!"}

 Yesterday we arrived home after spending a week at Glacier National Park in Montana. It was a wonderful trip and an absolutely beautiful place! We live in a beautiful place here in Minnesota and so I am used to thanking and praising God for his amazing creative powers but I was incredibly in awe of Him during this trip. He is awesome!

I took 450 pictures but I won't share them all! (are you terribly disappointed? ) Here is a few odds and ends of the ones I took. I will probably share quite a few more pictures one at a time in my Sunday posts.  I have tons to do here at home (mountains of laundry, a weedy garden and a dirty van to name a few) so I will just quickly tell a few things about our trip.

 We met up with Ken's parents - Terry and Sharyl, at the park. The park was about halfway between our homes. We each had to travel nearly 1000 miles one way. We enjoyed spending time with them.

We hiked every day we were there. The first day we ate our lunch at the edge of this rushing river. 

 Then we crossed over it on a very wiggly cable/plank bridge. What fun!

 There was a mountain stream near our campsite that the kids had fun moving rocks around in, creating rapids and changing it's course.

 When in camp we had fun playing games and of course had to work on cooking. The camp cooking here was different for me as we were in bear country and so had to make sure to pack everything that had anything to do with food and put it in our vehicles as soon as we were done eating. Leaving dishes or a stove out could result in a fine.

 One rainy day we drove over the mountains on the Going-to-the-sun-road (though it didn't go to the sun that day) and visiting the cedar forest on the other side. There was a river there with all colors of beautiful rocks. The girls and I had fun making people out of the rocks. Terry and Sharyl made a cross.

Some of our rock people.

Ken and I in the Cedar Forest.

 This big cedar tree took Ken and Terry and the four kids to get around it.

Aaron on a stump or a cedar.

A beautiful river in the woods.

 Lakes and trees and mountains are such a beautiful combination and we got to see that view (with different lakes and mountains and trees) over and over again.

 Granddad with his granddaughters. Standing on a bridge made of a couple of flattened logs. On that fun hike we got to cross over a bunch of little waterfalls and a couple of rushing rivers.

 The large Saint Mary's river near our campsite.

 Cliff climbing was a great favorite of the boys. Mara after falling once (not badly) wasn't as fond of it.

There were flowers all over the park. It looked like a flower garden so many places. It was, but a natural one planted by God. I took tons of pictures of them but decided you might not want to see every variety as there were so many! 

Miniature Lupine. It was all over and beautiful!

 Hiking down the trail. On this day Ken and Terry were off climbing a mountain so just Sharyl, the kids and I went hiking. We had a bunch of fun and also found our first bear evidence- some big bear scat and a place the bear had dug for grubs. We decided to turn around and go back.

 Another gorgeous falls. This was just down from Sunrift gorge- one of my favorite areas of the park that I saw.

 One morning we went to an Art class at the park. Here Megan is adding her touch to a painting. We also did our own watercolor paintings.

 Checking out Many Falls. This was the area we finally saw a bear but were thankful that it was on the other side of the lake. (so I didn't get any pictures).

 Our final stop before heading home. We drove down to the Two Medicine Lake area.

Now I had better go get busy!!! Have you ever gone to Glacier National Park? What is your favorite sort of family vacation?