Busy Bees

A quick look at our very busy beehives.    Blow the pic up for a better look at how many bees there were.   It's goldenrod flow time and the bee yard smells very strongly of goldenrod honey. 

Not much honey overall this year, but lots of bees.   Each colony needs lots of bees in the fall cluster to keep things warm until spring.  Every time I open a box and see it full of bees instead of just a few frames of bees, I am very, very happy. 

The hive with the yellow super seems to have quite a bit of honey in it.   Maybe the long hive with the orange super, too.  They get to keep their honey this year.    I'll take the empty supers off the hives next month and put candy on the hives..   That way everyone has plenty of feed for the winter.   Just in case.

Garlic Chives

Garlic chives are pretty.

That is all.

Fall Asparagus

Pretty in the morning with all the dew, isn't it? Lily thought so, too and got this pic for me.

Four weeks ago, I cut all the asparagus trees down for the season.   

Ha!  They took right off again.  Now they are almost as big as before - blooming as well as ever, too, which makes the bees happy.

I am trying to keep these as strong and healthy as possible for spring harvest, so I have resisted going out there every day to pick the one or two new stalks.   We're enjoying the view, though.

Pink Zinnia

photo:  Lily Jenness

Lily caught this backlit pink beauty one very dewy morning. 

We love zinnias. 

Apple Season

It's apple season!    Here are a few things we are doing and have done with apples.   I hope you get a chance to try a few of them.

Apple Pie Filling
Apple Pear Pie Filling
Apple Slices - canned
Apple Dumplings
Apple Tart
April's Apple Slices [Slab Pie]
Green Tomato/Apple Crisp 
Apple Pear Maple Jam
Autumn Berry [Autumn Olive/Elaeagnus] Apple Jam




One bushel of apples makes about 21 quarts of apple pie filling or canned apple slices.   I've got one bushel done [pie filling] and one more coming [canned apple slices].   Our pantry is overloaded this year, which is both a blessing and a curse.   I'm focusing on the blessing part. 

Early Fall

Tis the season of dew and spiders.  They are both more spectacular in early fall than at any other time of the year.  Lily grabbed the camera and got these shots.

I saw a funny thing the other day - a large spider had spun a huge web [2 ft across] near the road, between an electric pole and the support wire next to it.   The spider sat in the center and was busy wrapping up a stink bug for later.   Half a dozen gnats were pestering that spider just like they pester us.   One or two would land on the spider's back and it would twitch a leg or two to try to get them off.  I watched for several minutes.  It looked just as annoyed as we do with those blasted gnats.    

In other news, we have a new truck - hence the radio silence last week while Eric was gone to Idaho to pick it up and visit family with our youngest, and Lily and I held down the fort here.

Also, we have hung the girls' doors, and are putting up the trim in their rooms, which means I have stained and shellacked miles of poplar trim and pine jambs.  

Also, I am a total hypocrite because I recently on this blog made a snide comment about the previous staining of light wood in dark colors [the antique flooring] and then found myself staining the very light poplar and pine trim, etc. with a couple of layers of red chestnut stain and then 6-8 coats of shellac so it would be dark to match the old doors.  Mea culpa.

Also, because the doors are so...weird...and short...we will be building transoms above them.   I'll do a post on that as we get going on that project.    In the meantime, happy creating to you all!

Berry Patch Update

The berry patch I planted this spring is doing well.   Here's a pic of it with the berries all growing up.   I keep my beehives in the center.   The berries protect the hives and the bees keep berry loving critters from getting tooo close.  Like the dog. 

I got all the berries from Stark Bros on sale, because I'm cheap and because getting those combo packs is a great way to try out several varieties. 

There are a bunch of blackberries, red raspberries and golden raspberries in here.   Many have actually borne fruit this year in spite of being babies.    This gives me hope that next year I'll have enough fruit for lots of pies.   And tarts.   And jam.   And more pies.   And maybe some to freeze.