Our California Girls!

This year, just like last year, we sent our bees to California for the winter.  A fellow beekeeper and good friend takes a couple hundred of his hives, plus our 6, and they go for the almond pollination out in California.   The bees are somewhere around Fresno.   It's a bit of a gamble taking bees out there, but at least they don't have to try to make the harsh winters up here.   Last year, however, most beekeepers including us, lost at least half of their hives because of the rains of 'biblical proportions' out there.   We lost 7 out of 8 hives.  For a few weeks they had anywhere from 8 to 10 inches a DAY of rain!!  The hives were wet and moldy.  But the Good Lord spared one hive for us to start with, and we ended up with a fairly good honey year anyway.   This year, the problem is lack of rain!   Things are very, very dry out in California right now.    Our friend Josh says the hives are just about all out in the almond groves now.   Almond growers need the bees for pollination and pay beekeepers all over the country to bring bees out there.  But because of the lack of rain, Josh says the dry weather is starting to impact the farming out here. The people in control of the irrigation are voting on whether to let the farmers water their crops or let them suffer some  losses. The farmers have prepaid for the water in a rollover program, but the state may go back on their word and leave them without that water. The farmers would then not only lose the water, but the millions of dollars invested in it. We need to pray for rain for California!  The farmers out there need a good almond crop, and we need our bees to come back home in the spring - healthy, strong,  and ready to go to work for us!!  Here are a couple photos of the insides of our hives out in Fresno.

Plenty of bees in this hive!

This hive is working on a pollen patty to eat until they can get to the almond blossoms.

Working With UFO'S

I've spent these cold winter evenings working with UFO'S!  For those of you not familiar with this 'crafting term', UFO stands for "un-finished objects".  Everyone who does any kind of hobby has these UFO'S laying around.  It's just human nature to start something gung-ho, then put the project away for whatever reason:  perhaps we hit a snag in the project, or ran out of money, or lost interest, or moved, or illness came, or life situations prevented us from our hobby.   I just finished a quilt that I started 15 years ago.   During the past 15 years I have moved, gotten married, built a house AND improved my quilting skills.   But I hated to throw the project out even though the squares were not the kind of work I would do today.   Over the years I put so much effort into the quilt, and the fabrics are vintage from the 60's and 70's.   So I decided to finish the quilt a little differently than originally intended.  Instead of a queen sized bedspread quilt with blue and green sashing, I used the best squares and made a smaller sofa sized quilt for wrapping up on cold nights while reading or watching TV.   Here is the finished project:  it is called Grandmother's Fan design.

The quilt is about 56 x 75, with a blanket used for batting. 

Another project I would like to finish is one that my mother started around 1950!  For her very first quilt she chose an elaborate Dresden Plate design (Wow, Mom, what a choice!).  Her original plan was to make a quilt for a full sized bed, with a gray border.  She made about 8 squares and had some fabrics cut out for more, but it wasn't enough to make too many more squares.   For whatever reason, she put away this project in a cedar chest and there it stayed until a few years ago when she gave me the project "to do something with".  Sixty years later!!!   I knew that 8 squares would never make a quilt top, and there was no way I could match those vintage 50's fabrics, so I took apart all the squares and plates she made, bought reproduction fabrics that closely matched, and used some old and some new fabrics to make NEW Dresden Plate squares.   I managed to make 20 squares out of the original 8.  The resulting quilt should be a queen sized quilt that will mostly cover a bed.  I need to applique more of the Dresden Plates onto 18 inch white squares, and then put everything together with stripping and sashing and backing and batting.   This will take me a while yet.  I remember that my sister and I would often dig into that cedar chest and look at the quilt squares Mom made and decide which fabrics we liked best.  So hopefully, soon, I will be able to finish my mother's UFO!

It's a lot of work to applique and sew these Dresden Plates, but aren't they pretty?

I have two more UFO'S and these are unfinished projects from Harold's Grandmother!  Here is one that I feel certain she must have sewn sometime in the 30's or early 40's because of the fabrics used.   Also the pattern is called Grandmother's Garden, which was extremely popular during the Depression Era because it used tiny pieces of fabric that could be saved from dresses and shirts that wore out.  This quilt was entirely hand sewn.   It had years of dirt embedded in it.   A neighbor gave me a special kind of soap to use on it, and I hand washed the quilt top.  All the dirt came out, and the quilt looks very nice and bright.  Only one hand seam fell apart, and I can re-sew that.   This quilt will need the edges appliqued to a side piece, and will need batting and backing.  I think I will use a plain linen for this.  And what an honor to be the one to finish Rosa Schadt's quilt!! 

What a lovely design on this 1930's quilt!

Here's a close-up of some of those vintage fabrics.

And here's one more UFO from Harold's grandmother Rosa.  This one I feel that she must have made in the late 40's or early 50's.  It also has a lot of vintage fabrics that you can't find anymore, and it is a large quilt, almost queen sized.   I need to get a backing and batting for this one and tie it up.  It will be lovely in the guest bedroom, which has a pink-peach color scheme.  And again, I feel so honored to be the one to finish her quilt!   And I am honored to be able to finish my own Mom's quilt, too!

Just look at all these vintage fabrics!

Wild Rice Bread

Since wild rice is native to Minnesota, I am always on the lookout for good recipes using this great natural food.   In this state we are very fortunate to be able to get the truly 'wild' naturally grown wild rice that is hand harvested the old fashioned way by the Native American tribes.  However, the cultivated - grown wild rice is also good and available all over the U.S.  It is raised on "wild rice farms".   It is darker and takes longer to cook.  The real wild rice is lighter and cooks up quicker.   Anyway, I decided to experiment with Wild Rice Bread, because I have had some really good breads from the local bakeries and of course I have to do things at home myself, you know!  I bake all the bread we eat, so buying bread at the store is something I can't make myself do!
    I found a good recipe in a book called Prairie Home Breads by Judith Fertig.   But I was not too keen on her method (electric mixer method) and some of the ingredients she used (like 2 tsps of ground pepper in a bread????  I don't think so!)  After some fiddling with ingredients, I did the bread MY way, and my husband and I were very pleased with the results!   Using a combination of rye flour and bread flour gives the bread a nice taste, and using milk instead of just water gives the bread a nice soft texture.  And of course we use our own wildflower honey in the bread!  This is definitely a bread that will be a part of our repertoire of home-baked breads.
     Here is the recipe in case you all would like to try it yourself!

WILD RICE BREAD

Cook 1/3 c. raw wild rice for about 40 min or until kernels are just burst and tender.  Let cool.  This can be done the day before if you wish.

***********************************

1/2 c. warm water

2 T. dry yeast                       Let all this proof while you prepare the rest of the

a pinch of sugar                   ingredients.

                                    ******************************************************

In a large bowl put: 

1 c. milk

2 tsp salt

1/3 c. honey

3 T. butter

Put this in a microwave for 2 or 3 minutes to scald.  

Let cool a little, then add the yeast mixture.   Stir in:

1/2 c. rye flour

2 c. bread flour
the cooked wild rice

Add more bread flour as needed until you have a dough that you can knead by hand (I used about 3 and 1/2 c. of bread flour) .  Knead for about 5 min and place in a greased bowl.  Cover with wax paper and a cloth and let rise until doubled.  Punch down and form into two firmly shaped round loaves, and place on a greased baking sheet.   Let rise until double.  Bake in a 375 oven for about 35 minutes or until done.  When you take the loaves out of the oven, rub a tablespoon or so of butter over the tops of the loaves.   This helps to soften those little bits of wild rice that bake on top. 

Makes two nice size loaves.   Great for sandwiches or with soup. 

And here's what the loaves look like: 

Mid Winter Day on Honey B Farm

There isn't much happening this time of year around here.  We have at least a foot of snow on the ground, and we got 4 more inches last night and it drifted in the high winds.  But everyone is fine and I walked around the place today taking photos.  Here's what things look like as of today!  Unless the plow comes through this evening, we won't be going anywhere.

The cats are snowed in, too, until we can dig them out a little more. 

Snow covered Two Squaw Lake

Not a footprint on our drifted in road.

Only ones making footprints are the deer!

The beauty of the northwoods in winter

Some of "the girls" - they have been laying about 10 eggs a day

No, girls, you can't go out yet!  Long time till spring.......

Fresh warm water is good on a cold day!

L to Rt:  Rosemary, Snowflake, Keemo.  Domino in back.

LittleBig navigating through the snow

Harold snow blowing a path to and from the wood stove

Our Do It Yourself Fixit Story

For a few days now my Singer sewing machine kept 'squeaking' while running.  I knew it didn't sound good, so we tried the obvious things - a little machine oil and a new needle.   That didn't do it.  The squeaking actually got worse.   It's not a real expensive sewing machine, just a thrifty-priced Singer I bought at Wal Mart about 8 years ago.  I knew that taking it to a sewing machine shop would cost me about $50-$100, and I only paid $98 for it in the first place. 
     So, we spread newspaper on the table, turned on every light we could, got a floor lamp in position for more light, and started to take things apart.  Harold figured if we break it, we'll just buy a new one (i.e. another thrifty model Singer).  But we gave it our best.  In a short while we had tiny screws everywhere, plastic housing parts all over, metal parts scattered.   We cleaned, we oiled, we used a can of air and blew out 'stuff', and Harold inspected every working part.  We cleaned parts with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips.  After all this, it STILL squeaked!   Harold kept muttering "Man built this thing, man can fix it."  Finally after about an hour and a half, he put a small brush attachment down into the machine and pulled a tiny piece of lint off of a plastic part.  We put things back together enough to test the machine and ........voila!  NO squeaking!!  We got it!  Who would have thought that a tiny piece of lint on a little plastic ring would cause such squeaking?
     We put everything back together, but for some reason we lost a screw that helps to hold the top housing.  It fell somewhere on the floor while we had the  mass of parts on the table.  Well, no matter.   The machine runs fine without it, and everything works great now - smooth and quiet.  And we saved a lot of money!   The moral of the story:  don't be afraid to fix things yourself.   We watched a couple You Tube videos on sewing machine repair (you can learn just about anything on You Tube), and just tried it.  Sometimes you get lucky and fix things!   And if you don't succeed, you can always take it to a "professional".
     All in all, this was a successful day.   Harold cut a load of wood, used the newly fixed snow blower (he fixed that, too) to move more snow, found his tire chains for the pickup (that he thought were lost).  I finished a craft project, cooked 3 great meals today, and did some housecleaning.   Fixing the sewing machine was just a good end to a very productive day!  Now I can continue with that quilt I was working on..........

"Cold Enough For Ya?"

That's what many Minnesotans will be saying today!  We just love to talk about the weather, you know..........and when our claim to fame is our cold temps we really enjoy it!  This morning we are currently at minus 28 and it is 9:30 in the morning.  I see on the news that Crane Lake MN (up in the Boundary Waters Area) is the coldest in the nation at minus 36.  That's only 8 degrees difference.
The cats made it OK this morning.  I gave them some hot water to drink - they really love that - and a warm meal of leftovers and cat food.   Now they are back into their insulated box, all 15 of them, probably sleeping in a big 'kitty ball'. 
Yep, it truly IS cold enough today!

Happy New Year!

Since this is a new year for this blog, I decided to change the look and freshen things up.  How do you like the new format?  I welcome comments and suggestions.   Hopefully I will receive more comments this year on some of my blog posts.   Don't be afraid to comment!

While putting away some holiday stuff, I came across this piece, which I thought made for the 'Perfect New Year's Resolution' for everyone:

Mend a quarrel.  Seek out a forgotten friend.
     Write a love letter.   Share some treasure.
Give a soft answer.  Encourage youth.
      Keep a promise.  Find the time.
Forgive an enemy.
     Listen.
Apologize if you were wrong.
     Think first of someone else.
Be kind and gentle.
     Laugh a little.  Laugh a little more.
Express your gratitude.
     Gladden the heart of a child.
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.
     Speak your love........speak it again.........Speak it still once again............

                                                                                         Anonymous