Archive for the ‘beeswax’ Category

OHMYGOSH – I’m Becoming a Recluse!

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

Thanks to My Dear John and Thunder Roads Beth, I realize that I have been remiss in writing to this blog. My Dear John was convinced that Bernie and I had developed Cabin Fever and killed each other.

Apparently, this blog is not the only form of communication I’ve been neglecting. After about two weeks on the homestead my dear husband informed me that I stand in danger of becoming downright unsociable. He sited the example that I had only left the homestead once in two weeks – and that was to go to the dump. And I went unwillingly and under duress.

But I LIKE being here! I like Bernie being here with me. And I have a really hard time understanding why I should leave it. I mean Bernie has been taking care of everything here while I work in my office and he’s great company when I’m not working. We have food, each other, beer, lots of honey, and constant entertainment watching the wildlife and walking through the woods, so it’s difficult to think of any good reason I should leave here.

But there is no excuse for not keeping in touch, and I do apologize for that. I pretty much suck at blogging.

Things are going really well for us right now. Bernie is busier than a one armed wall paper hanger taking care of this place and moving us out of our home in town. He’s been spending a lot of time getting the back hoe bucket repaired. I like it best when he works around here and I can hear him in the background as I work from my office. It’s comforting. And it’s also the only time I know for certain I’ll get fed during the day. I’ve been busy with working from home during the day, and getting bath products to sell made in the evenings. And then there’s always the view outside that demands attention……

Tonight we took the Trail Blazer up the Road Less Traveled and sat on a fallen tree and listened to the rain beat on the canopy above us. We sat there quite a while. Together. Silent. Listening. Watching. Finally the rain made it down to us and we went on to the house.

We are busy – and we are happy. We are finally taking time to enjoy every day. And we are enjoying each other more than ever. I guess you kind of have to do that when you live in the middle of 65 acres and refuse to leave it.

Oh – and Hersey, you don’t have to be crazy to live on the side of a mountain. But it sure as hell helps.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, bath products, bath salts, beeswax, homestead, homesteading | 3 Comments »

Officially Homesteading

Friday, August 31st, 2007

Well, Bernie got here around 1:30 this afternoon and made it official. We’re homesteading.

The cats settled in pretty well and let me sleep until 5:30 this morning. Elvis woke me up screaming about wanting breakfast. All three cats greeted me right away and today they all act like they’ve always been here.

After work, Bernie and I rode around the property in the Trail Blazer for a few minutes and then sat around talking about how we can’t believe this time has finally come. What a nice feeling.

I rendered the rest of the bees wax and got some pictures. I’ll try to get that page up on the website in the next few days.

Bernie went out to see how well the pin stock he bought is going to work as a pin for his backhoe bucket. He and Tex are going to have to fabricate a stop for it and drill a hole in one end for the clevis pin. Sounds like they need to use the pneumatic grinder to get the bucket holes just right. bernie’s on top of the world doing that kind of thing.

There really is not too much to write about right now, but I felt I should post something to let y’all know we finally made it. We’re here. We’re happy. And we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us!

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, back hoe, basic living, beeswax, fox, homestead, homesteading | No Comments »

The Count Down Until Full Time Homesteading

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

Well, we left the homestead today knowing that we only have one more time to leave it! And while it’s difficult not to wish the next two weeks away, we have so much to do in that time and so much to enjoy that it will take focus to take it one day at a time.

We left the Paper Wasp nest to hang for another week before we remove it. My Dear John had an excellent suggestion and we’ll put it in the freezer for a week or so before dissecting it.

Our big project this weekend was putting a double barrel Weber carburetor on my trike. That may not seem much like homesteading to you, but let me tell you that I would be one mean homesteader without my trike. So anything we do to it should be considered absolutely related to homesteading. The happier my trike is, the happier I am. So you can see, it is all very much related.

Putting on this carburetor involved everything from a simple wrench to a rubber mallet to a sawsall. That motor area is unbelievably tight. Like by buddy Tex explains, it’s a jigsaw puzzle. But we got it all disassembled and then put the new carburetor on, only to learn we screwed up on putting the alternator back together. Yes, putting on the carburetor involved removing the alternator. It is indeed a freaking puzzle – so much so that the instructions recommended removing the motor. It probably would have been easier had we done so, but Bernie and I are not known for taking the easy way out, so we just kind of winged it. But while we were winging it with the alternator, we didn’t realize it didn’t go back together quite right. So we had to mess with that a while. Once that was finished, the Grape Ape fired right up! I did a little jig. Bernie tried to look all “Yea, I knew it would start” but he was grinning like a fool. Very nice! The bad news is that I screwed up the throttle connection to the hand grip when we were testing the pull to the carburetor. Expensive lesson, but I’ll buy a new hand grip this week.

Other than that, we just really tried to enjoy our time on the homestead. The bees are doing great and you can read about them on The Bee Buzz. I began rendering beeswax this weekend, and once I am finished I intend to put up a webpage on the process on The Bee Buzz website. I have searched high and low on the internet for step by step instructions, and have yet to find them. Maybe this will help out some other searching soul. I hope to have it up within the next two weeks – complete with pictures.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, beeswax, biker, homestead, homesteading, motorcycling, paper wasp, wasp | No Comments »

The Cyle of Life

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

As I approach 50, kicking and screaming every inch of the way, I find myself reflecting on the cycle of life more than ever before. It seems that every situation I find myself in boils down to the “cycle of life”. It’s interesting to me. I don’t necessarily find it depressing, I just find it very interesting.

We arrived at the homestead this weekend to face the fact that we have lost one of our beehives. No, it was not due to Colony Collapse Syndrome. It was due to the fact that we really refused to believe we were losing a hive. This is the hive that had a drone layer and the hive that we have never found a queen in. Still, we chose to believe we just missed the queen. There was a great deal of activity around the hive, afterall. But the truth is, the hive was dieing and while we had hoped it would last until Bob from the Department of Agriculture showed up with a new queen, the hive was struggling. And now it’s dead. Very sad. We still have five hives, but it’s pretty depressing to lose a hive when you know there is no one and nothing to blame but yourself. It was a cycle of life for this hive, but we could have prolonged it if we had interfered. And with bee hives, you really must interfere from time to time.

Well, Bob will be here Monday and we’ll inspect the other five hives. I wrote a little about the bees and my wax rendering experience on The Bee Buzz and I put some pictures up of some honey robbers on The Bee Buzz Website.

And speaking of the cycle of life, I told you last week of how my trike had a header blowout and we patched it up with a beer can and a clothes hanger. Well, here’s a picture of it:


Today we put new headers on her, and if the new headers weren’t so darn pretty, I would be a lot more sad about getting rid of this beautiful patch job. But do not worry, the old headers will go to Tex. He can take anything and turn it into something to be proud to own.

Speaking of Tex, he and Charlotte are coming out tomorrow morning. They’re bringing Bobo of course – I suspect Bobo is the real reason they are coming out. I think he gets to missing me and insists on it. I’ll feed them breakfast, and then Tex and Bernie will level out the container so we can build a lean-to off of it. I imagine Charlotte, Bobo, and I will spend a lot of time inside. These man-jobs can be a little nerve wracking. Besides, I need to melt and filter the beeswax one more time. I think Bobo will enjoy that activity a lot more than watching the guys do man-stuff.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bees, beeswax, biker, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, lip balm, motorcycling | No Comments »

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s……. A Bear!!!!

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Well, after finding bear poop in the yard many times and seeing, first hand, the destruction they can cause to bird feeders, I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising that we actually saw a bear in the yard this weekend.

But it was surprising. At least it was to me. My niece and great-niece came up for a visit and we were enjoying Saturday afternoon just visiting in the living room. Bernie was out greasing his backhoe and all felt very calm on the homestead. I glanced out the living room window just in time to see a big black butt walking past the window. My first thought was “Now what is that huge dog doing in this yard?” followed immediately by the thought “Wow – that’s the biggest black dog I’ve ever seen” followed immediately by me screaming “Bear! There’s a bear!”. The three of us jumped to our feet. My niece ran to get her camera. My great niece ran to the window to get a better look. I ran to the front door and screamed “Bernie! Bear! Bernie! Bear!” frantically waving for him to get inside and look.

We all gathered at the window and I pointed and said “There he is – wait – where is he?” My eight year old great-niece looked at me and said “When you screamed for Bernie he took off running. That way. He ran fast and now he’s gone.” Doh!

After we all calmed down Bernie and I realized that the direction he was traveling was straight for the apiary. That worried us a bit. But we checked on the bees several times over the weekend and they were just fine. Probably the bear was just thirsty and headed for the creek for some water. I imagine his ears are still ringing from my shrill screaming to get Bernie inside.

Other than that the weekend was relatively calm. I did manage to render wax and I wrote about it on The Bee Buzz. I’ll try to get pictures up of the whole process in the next week or so. My niece got a picture of the little fawns looking for food in the backyard and she seemed pretty happy about that. My great-niece seemed more interested in the rabbits that ran about when I took her for rides in the Trail Blazer.

All in all, we had a great weekend on the homestead. Great company with lots of laughs and plenty of hugs. And we saw a bear! I really hope he doesn’t make visiting us a habit. He could ask his deer friends about the result of that. Bear season is at a good time of year……

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in apiary, basic living, bear, bees, beeswax, deer, doe, fawn, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, self reliance, self sufficiency | No Comments »

Dealing With Miss Penny 101: The Proper Way to React to a Home-made Gift

Thursday, July 12th, 2007

As I mentioned in my last post, I made some beeswax lip balm last weekend. I’ll get some pictures up on the website soon. It turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. In fact, of the three people I’ve given some to so far, two of them reacted quite positively. One even suggested I could get rich selling it. Needless to say, THAT person will be receiving future home made gifts from me. Probably she’ll be the proud recipient of some home-made soap, but that little jewel isn’t quite cured enough to be a gift yet.

We’ve established how much I enjoy the whole obligatory gift giving notion, but there are times when I do feel obligated to give a gift – and even times when the spirit just moves me to do so. And because of this, I feel it only fair that I should tell you how I expect you will react when you are the blessed soul that recieves a home-made gift from me.

Gushing is completely acceptable. Proclaiming me The Queen of All Things Home-Made is not only acceptable, but somewhat expected. Doing these simple little things will insure that: 1) I will not hate you for all eternity and 2) you may well be the proud recipient of another slice of heaven made by my own hands.

The truth is, as much as I enjoy making home-made gifts, I do NOT enjoy giving to people who do not appreciate them. In all honesty, that kind of pisses me off. So, lie if you must – but certainly gush over your gift. You will not only receive future home-made gifts from me, but you will insure I will actually speak to you when we cross paths in the future.

You may think I am a little sensitive on this subject. You may be right. But I’m the one making this crap and I’m the one giving it away, so I get to make the rules. So gush away or be dropped from my gift list. And have a nice day.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, beeswax, homestead, honey, honey bees, lip balm, mice, self reliance, self sufficiency, soap | 2 Comments »

Lions and Tigers and Bears – Well, Sort of

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

For some reason we saw more wild animals this weekend on the homestead than we ever have before. We saw a doe with two precious little fawns, a fox, two coyotes, a skunk, and several rabbits. As remote as our homestead is, it really is fairly unusual to see many animals. The animals there are still wild and not used to a lot of human noise or motion. Unlike the animals in town that graze next to the highways or the skunks that visit our yard, any sound or slight movement will send them tearing into the woods on the homestead. I must say, although I enjoyed watching them, with each I saw I thought of either food on our table, or predator to our chickens and goats when we move out there permanently.

When we got to the homestead Friday, we immediately began rendering some of the beeswax we’ve collected. As I wrote about on The Bee Buzz, this was a little more involved than I had anticipated. I did manage to get enough wax rendered to make about 48 little tins of beeswax lip balm. I’ll have to work on getting the rest of it rendered in the next few weeks.

The soap is curing quite nicely and changing to a creamy white color. In three or four more weeks or so I should be able to try it out. If it passes approval, I’ll have gifts for my Christmas victims.

Other than that, Bernie and I mowed the lawns and took care of a few things on the homestead. As a result of me hitting a huge stump with the riding mower, we had to spend a little time on Saturday fixing one of the blades on the mowing deck. I hit it good enough to bend the frame it’s attached to. But Bernie managed to pound it back into shape and it’s running right along again.

Next weekend my neice is visiting us on the homestead and she’s bringing along the only kid she’s got that isn’t staying at my parent’s for the summer. We’re really looking forward to that. Two of my most favorite people!

I’ll be posting the lip balm recipe on The Bee Buzz website soon, so be sure to check it out!

Bee Free!
Penny


Posted in basic living, bees, beeswax, coyote, deer, doe, fawn, fox, homestead, homesteading, honey bees, lip balm, rabbit, red fox, skunk, soap | No Comments »