Psst…the buzzing is back

By on May 1, 2012 in Beekeeping

We became beekeepers last spring. Sadly, after carefully tending to our hive for several months we lost our first hive back in February (this resulted in my [in]famous $75 jar of honey).

I am happy to report that after a two month long silence, things have once again been buzzing around here! That’s right, the bees are back.  Introducing Hive 2.0!

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Above is a three pound package of bees with the queen included in her own special queen cage. The queen cage is a small block of wood with a few chambers carved out – one for the queen and the others for her attendants (seriously). Once you install the package of bees and remove the plug, from the queen cage you will find a secondary plug made out of candy.The other bees will eat their way through the plug releasing the queen into the hive. If all goes well, this process will happen within a couple of days and the new queen will be accepted into the hive.

We installed the bees into our top frame hive two weeks ago. They have already been hard at work building comb. We will be dong a full hive inspection soon but from the looks of things (thanks to the handy dandy observation window my husband added to the hive) they already have begun building comb on six of the bars.

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Sadly (well actually after our recent experiences I should say “hopefully”) we will not have any honey of our own from the hive this year. During the first year of the hive, it is wise not to remove any honey as you want to be sure they have enough stores to make it through the winter. Of course, as we found out this past year, even by doing that there is no guarantee of a successful winter. Here’s to hoping Hive 2.0 does much better than Hive 1.0 : )

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For Old Times’ Sake

By on April 16, 2012 in Preserving

Earlier this year while out of town, I was able to take a side trip to see my dad and uncle who are in southern Virginia at my grandparents’ former residence. I hadn’t been there in nearly fifteen years but upon walking in everything was immediately familiar. Not much had changed in those fifteen years.

While I was there I go to see all sorts of old pictures – many of them from my father and his brothers’ childhoods. I learned a few things from the pictures too – I never knew there was an old farm house that my grandparents/dad/uncle lived in and that he built the house I was familiar with next to the old farm house. I never even knew they had chickens and sold eggs!  Well I knew about the chickens but I didn’t know that they had this awesome sign:

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So, while I was looking through old timey photos, I spotted something that especially piqued my interest. It was a large, old, cabbage slicer. Knowing my grandmothers Slovenian heritage I said that I was wondering if she ever made her own sauerkraut. Evidentially she did and my uncle (who holds on to a lot of things – thankfully!) had her fermenting crocks in the shed. Did I want them? What?! Yes, I would love them. The previous day I had been asking if there were any old cast iron skillets around. I struck out with the cast iron but I struck gold with this.

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Guess what is in that incredibly dingy canvas bag?

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The cabbage slicer! I didn’t really use that head of cabbage on this (literally) rusty old thing. The plan is to restore the slicer before next cabbage season.

As it turns out, the crock and slicer were originally owned by my great-grandparents. Apparently my great uncle tells stories of my great grandfather sneaking off into the basement (to “tinker” with something and while down there he’d be sipping on his cabbage wine that he had fermenting in the basement.

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Cabbage wine?! I’m not so sure about that one but in the old world you’d make alcohol out of what ever was cheapest and readily available. Shortly after learning the history of these items, I searched online for information on cabbage wine. Believe it or not, there isn’t much out there. However, I did find a website that listed three different cabbage wine recipes. I think I will be brave and give one of them a try this coming year – you know, for old times’ sake.

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February Recap

By on February 29, 2012 in Other

This month was a crazy busy month – especially for a “winter” month. I think this may be an indicator of how busy the spring/summer will be this year. There were some low lights in the month including being under the weather  one week and having to unexpectedly go out of town for a week following. All of that aside, there were definitely some highlights:

    • I learned a whole bunch about soil testing and soil fertility at my urban ag training workshop. In fact, I think I left with my head spinning a bit but we had so much great information over those three hours and coming home with handouts is VERY helpful.One thing I never thought of until this workshop was the paradox of using organic fertilizers. You can not rely on compost or composted manure totally because plants need about three times more nitrogen than phosphorus and compost/manure are more of a 1:1 ratio. If growing organically you can supplement with things like bone meal, blood meal, fish meal, or chicken litter – these are things that are a byproducts of industrialization of our food (the very thing I, and many others are trying to avoid!)

 

    • I started my volunteering for the urban ag training program. This month I worked with a farmer just on the outskirts of Atlanta who grows on his 2.5 acre property. I got to clear some of the winter beds to prep them for spring planting and got a great tour of his operation. He has a great vermicomposting system set up in his barn. He feeds them one month old compost for them to finish processing. When it is time to harvest the finished compost he puts a window screen over the bin and adds the fresh compost on top and the worms migrate up through the screen (I was surprised they could fit through that small of a mesh screen)

 

    • I had the opportunity to see Joel Salatin (from Polyface Farm. Among other things, he’s been seen on the documentary Food, Inc. and profiled in the book Omnivore’s Dilemma) speak at Georgia College. My husband took the day off and we headed to Milledgeville. We stopped in Social Circle on the way for a great Southern buffet lunch at the Blue Willow Inn.  We took another small detour on the way to see the Rock Eagle Effigy Mound– a mound made of many many quartzite rocks in the shape of a bird. It is thought to be between 1,000 – 3,000 years old. I mean, we were practically driving right past it so why not stop? I’m glad we did.Milledgeville
      Joel’s speech was awesome. He spoke based on his most recent book, “Folks This Ain’t Normal”. I listened to the audio version (narrated by Joel himself) while traveling to and from Florida over Christmas. In the book (and in his speech) Joel talks about the major changes in agriculture over the last hundred years or so as we moved into “industrial agriculture” and the impacts such shifts have had. He argues that it is this current hundred year period – the period of cheap energy – which is abnormal. It is a great read listen – I highly recommend it! It was great to have the opportunity to see him speak in person.

 

    • Our community garden is getting ready to start it’s second season and this year we are getting organized! There is a temporary advisory board in place to flesh out things like the bylaws and rules and standardize some things like the plot sizes and general layout of the garden space. Committees are getting set up and we are gearing up for a great season!Earlier this month, members of our community garden were able to tour two other nearby gardens which are coming up on their third and fourth seasons. It was interesting to see the way different gardens are organized and also it was good to get their take on things like setting up a composting system and having plot captains for people to go to with any issues.

 

Add in the fact that 1/2 of the month was “lost” due to illness and unexpected travel and it’s been a real busy month. Whew! It’s no wonder this blog is feeling a bit neglected. Needless to say, I did less than awesome this month at my quest to eat mostly local, sustainably grown foods. Here’s to a better month ahead.

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Liquid Gold–My $75 Jar of Honey

By on February 13, 2012 in Beekeeping

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This right here is my $75 jar of honey. I feel like this is my version of William Alexander’s experience with The $64 Tomato. Last spring my husband and I became beekeepers. As is pretty typical of me, we went with a less common hive set up (Top Bar Hive) rather than the more common Langstroth Hive set up. I was drawn to the Top Bar system because it is a more low-impact system that allows the bees build their own comb to fit their needs rather than us imposing the comb type by using frames with wax foundations. The closer to natural something is, the more I gravitate toward it.

During the spring and fall we supplemented the bees “diet” with sugar syrup. Over several months we monitored the progress of the hive and watched in amazement of all the new comb that was being built. We didn’t harvest any honey because during the first year of your hive you are building up a strong hive with plenty of honey stores for the winter.

It’s been warm here lately and as our thoughts turned toward spring we discussed the possibility of adding second hive this season. With the temperatures above 60 degrees F this previous weekend we went to open the hive for an inspection. Well,  a look in the observation window revealed trouble and we opened the hive to find *sigh* dead bees. A small pile of them. A few other bees were found buried head first in some of the cells – a classic sign of starvation. But! This honey. This honey was just two frames away from where they were found. I understand that when it is real cold the bees won’t break cluster to go find food but this food wasn’t at the other end of the hive, it was nearby and there have been several warm days where they should have been able to access it. So, as newbie (failed) beekeepers, I am still not sure exactly what happened. It’s is a sad, defeating feeling. To care for the hive for so many months and to see it grow and do so well and then to lose the whole hive. They didn’t make it through the winter and it’s been a pretty mild winter.

This jar of honey could cost more than $75 if I factored in all of our beekeeping expenses over the past year. I only counted the cost for the package of bees because I am getting another package of bees this spring and hoping for the best this time around. Beekeeping – Take Two!

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Eatin’ Happy–Week 4 Recap

By on January 28, 2012 in Other

This week came to a close on quite a busy note! This morning we had our first meeting of the year at the community garden to start planning for the upcoming growing season. After the meeting, my husband and I headed over to our local co-op pick up location for our weekly supply of veggies and eggs. Then it was off to Blick Art Supplies to pick up a few HUGE canvasses in preparation for Flora Bowley’s Bloom True ecourse which starts in just over a week (I can’t wait!)

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By the time we got home, we had just over 30 minutes to get a quick bite to eat before we had to head out to meet the “Farm Train” (the delivery truck from Nature’s Harmony Farm that makes occasional deliveries to the area).

I picked up four stew hens and about four pounds of pork (neck) bones from the farm. Right now I am simmering two of the stew hens for chicken stock (I will use the meat in a couple of dishes for this week) and I’m also browning the pork bones in my Dutch oven. I am going to put some of the pork bones in with the pasta sauce I am making tomorrow and the rest I will braise in the oven with chicken stock and red wine.  I have a feeling it will be very yummy! :)

As I look back over this first month of “Eatin’ Happy”, I am so glad to be patronizing local farmers and trying new things. It has been fun to bake my own bread, make my own cheese, try various vegetables that I hadn’t tried before, and try methods of cooking (like braising) that I hadn’t tried in the past. This past week I dig through the camping gear in the garage in order to find my Dutch oven. I’ve used my Dutch oven and cast iron skillet more this past month than I had in the past several years. With this first month behind me, I will be doing these recaps on a monthly rather than weekly basis.

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Meatless Monday #3

By on January 24, 2012 in Cooking

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Pan fried falafel, tabbouleh, and tahini sauce

 

I love Middle Eastern food and though I have made tabbouleh and baba ghanoush for years, this is the first time I ever made my own falafel. I started soaking the chick peas in the morning and by dinner time they were ready to drain, rinse, and make into falafels. I was low on oil so we pan fried some and baked the rest. I combined some tahini with Greek yogurt, salt, pepper and lemon juice to serve with the falafels – delicious!

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Seed Catalog Time

By on January 22, 2012 in Growing

So far this blog has been mostly about the food I have been purchasing, cooking up and eating but there is a lot more I have in mind for Eatin’ Happy. Part of that is sharing my adventures in growing my own produce in a sustainable and responsible way.

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Last spring we started an organic vegetable plot at a new community garden that opened up near us. I didn’t even know it was opening up until March, and by the time plots were assigned & we amended the soil, it was two weeks past the last frost date before we got the plants in the ground – plants we bought at a local big box DIY home improvement store.

Over the course of the past year I’ve read more about organic gardening and sustainable agriculture. I’ve also learned more about how seed companies are being bought up by bigger and bigger companies. In fact Dr. Philip H. Howard, Assistant Professor of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies at Michigan State University, published a paper in 2009 on consolidation in the global seed industry from 1996 – 2008 accompanied with the information graphic shown below (click on the graphic to be taken to Dr. Howard’s page about this study. Page includes a link where you can zoom in/scroll in and out of the graphic and also see an animation of the consolidation of seed companies over these years)

I know it is hard to see here (again, click on the graphic for more information including a link where you can zoom in/scroll in and out of the graphic) but the size of the circles are proportional to the global seed market share and the red circles are Pharmaceutical/Chemical Companies.

Now, I don’t know about you but I am not exactly very trusting of BigPharm or BigChem – especially the ones that are buying up the seed market. It is important for me, now more than ever, to support smaller seed companies – ones that carry a variety of organic and heirloom options. I am not at all opposed to F1 hybrids. Many of them are less resistant to pests than their heirloom parents but, if you save the seeds and plant them, subsequent generations will not be like their F1 hybrid parent. What I am against is how seeds are being genetically engineered, taking bits of DNA from this bacteria or that bacteria and inserting it into our plants so that they produce their own pesticide or they become resistant to herbicides. This process circumvents the natural barriers (of plant & bacteria mating to produce these traits) which must be in place for some reason. I strongly believe that the closer to natural and balanced things are the healthier they are and that dysfunction and disease are the results of imbalance. We naturally want to return to a state of balance! So, while others debate back and forth with each other about whether or not GMO foods are safe, I’ll be over here doing my best to avoid them because they are far from natural and I don’t believe we know quite enough to be playing Creator in such a way.

*steps off the soapbox* Ahem…so on this dreary Sunday afternoon in January I am doing a traditional gardening activity. I am sitting here with my two seed catalogs, a notebook and pen planning what I am going to grow this year. Both Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (along with other seed companies) have taken The Safe Seed Pledge vowing that they will never knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered seeds or plants. I am excited to be supporting these two companies with my seed purchases this year and I am looking forward to a bountiful spring and summer harvest from delicious organic and heirloom vegetables.

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Eatin’ Happy–Week 3 Recap

By on January 21, 2012 in Other

I admit that this week was the most challenging week so far for me. This was mainly due to poor planning on my part coupled with working more hours at work covering for a co-worker that was on vacation.  Though a strive to keep a sense of balance with this quest to eat more real, less processed food (by balanced I mean not to be too hard on myself for occasional meals out or purchasing occasional canned goods), I was still stressing about my limited planning for the week. Ugh! So – I want to be careful not to be too hard on myself, but I also don’t want to be too easy on myself either (again – balance). They say you shouldn’t compare yourself to others but instead, compare yourself to you. In thinking about all of this

  • While thinking about balance, it occurred to me during this week that I should probably be keeping a food log.  By keeping a food log I can accurately monitor how well I am “staying on track” and (hopefully) recognize patterns throughout this process.

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  • My fermented cabbage (Japanese “sauerkraut”) turned out great! The picture above is a favorite breakfast or lunch of mine – a farm fresh “egg in a basket” (an egg pan fried in a slice of Genesis 1:29 bread) with a little sprinkle of parmesan & a side of fermented cabbage. The ginger carrots continue to ferment on the countertop (they are super salty – I am thinking of doing another batch with less salt and combining the two batches to even them out).

  • Since moving away from eating industrialized meat to eating meat that has been pastured and locally grown, I’ve been missing chicken. I just hadn’t found a local source for pastured chickens here in January. I went to Whole Foods mid-week to get more whole wheat flour and while I was there, I picked up a chicken from the meat case. It’s hard to see the price ring up for 4x the amount you are used to paying for a broiler BUT knowing that this chicken got to run around, eat bugs and just be a chicken rather than being confined in a long house with no windows with several other chickens packing on the weight so quick that the legs can hardly bear the weight makes is worth it to me.

  • I also found some other local sources for pastured chicken this week!
    • Nature’s Harmony Farm has a “farm train” that makes deliveries at two stops in the Atlanta area about once every six weeks or so. I meet the farm train next Saturday to pick up my four stew chickens. Hurray for chicken stock & chicken soup!
    • I was looking at the local chapters listings on the Weston A Price Foundation website and found out that one of our local chapters has a Yahoo group. I found out about a local food co-op near me through the Yahoo group (one that offers pastured chickens – hurray!)

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Meatless Monday #2

By on January 17, 2012 in Cooking

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Grilled Portobello Sandwich w/ Roasted Red Peppers & Goat Cheese
on Homemade Rosemary Olive Oil Bread

 

Tonight was a quick dinner night. We marinated some portobello mushrooms in olive oil and red wine vinegar and then grilled them. I made a batch of Rosemary Olive Oil dough over the weekend and cooked up a loaf just before dinner

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Eatin’ Happy – Week 2 Recap

By on January 14, 2012 in Other

As another week draws to a close I notice that even though my kitchen often looks like a tornado came through,  my quest to eat less processed foods and purchase more locally, small farm sourced products is going well overall. For the past two weeks I have been almost hyper-focused on eating well but now that we are two weeks into it I am hoping I can trade out some of the time spent in the kitchen for more time spent in my art studio while still avoiding most processed foods.

Here are some highlights for this week:

  • We harvested broccoli from our garden! Last fall, we planted some broccoli, swiss chard, garlic, cabbage, and peas. The swiss chard and cabbage have been very slow growing and the peas died when temps dipped down into the teens the other week but the broccoli has done very well and it was nice to be able to pick a few heads of broccoli and use it in one of our dinners this week.

  • I had my orientation meeting for the Urban Agriculture Training Program I am participating in this year through Georgia Organics. I am SO excited to be participating in the program. I will meet with other participants for a monthly workshop throughout the year. In addition to that, I will be volunteering a minimum of ten hours a month at various participating farms and other programs. I am excited about the wide variety of operations I will have the opportunity to work with and learn from.

  • I dusted off my juicer (it hadn’t seen the light of day in a few years), and made some yummy juice with kale, apple, carrots, and ginger.

  • New veggie of the week – kohlrabi. I peeled & diced the kohlrabi mixing it with some olive oil, salt & pepper and roasted it in the oven along with some Jerusalem artichokes I had on hand from last week. Roasted kohlrabi & Jerusalem artichokes = yummy!

  • I started fermenting vegetables. Fermentation isn’t something I thought much about until I started reading Nourishing Traditions. I had 1/2 a cabbage on hand along with some carrots and ginger so I made some Japanese Sauerkraut and ginger carrots from the recipes in the book. They are still fermenting as we speak – hopefully I will be reporting on successful ferments during next week’s recap.

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