When the sun sets at 5pm, and you don't have electricity to light the house, there is not much else to do in the evenings but read. While I have always been a huge lover of books and reading, I don't think have ever read as many books as I have this winter (well, perhaps when I had nursing newborns!) Over the past few months, I've excitedly poured through Waldorf Education curricula, zipped through a few novels, listened to several children's novels that Brian has read aloud to Ella, and mostly, read many, many homesteading books. While I have homesteaded over a decade, there is really no end to the learning that I will do. There is always a new skill to learn, always an interesting … [Read more...]
How to Harvest Honey from your Beehives
Our bees have been hard at work this year, helping to create one of the most abundant fruiting seasons that I can recall. (After two years where we could literally count the number of apples on the old tree, it's amazing to look up and see hundreds of ripe fruits!) And now we are even more grateful for their work as we enjoy the sweet reward of their efforts - honey. It had been a few years since I've donned a bee suit, and I was very excited to help with the harvest. I have to admit that I'm a tiny little bit squeamish about the whole process. Putting on a suit that is way too big for me and standing in the hot sun with smoke in my face, while hundred of angry bees dive bomb my head … [Read more...]