Monday, December 5, 2016

Christmas Shopping


All set up and ready to sell to the folks coming to The Richmond Holiday Market on Saturday, December 3rd.  It was such a busy day, that this is the only photo I was able to take.  After the doors opened, people were coming by, tasting syrup, inquiring about the honey comb, buying presents, and just enjoying the holiday market.  Outside were roaming carolers, draft horse drawn wagon rides, and lots of food and music and plenty of snow flakes.  It was a fun and lucrative day and it felt great to know some syrup and honey were going to make their way into Christmas stockings and under trees.  Merry Christmas!

Monday, November 28, 2016

ALL TUCKED IN

The honey they could spare has been extracted, the rest left to feed the dormant foragers through their long winter indoors.  Then the hives were wrapped  and insulated to help them keep as warm as possible.  See you in the spring, bees!
 

Friday, October 14, 2016

Maple Syrup Seasons Starts Now

....with having to build up your wood supply in fall
to fire that evaporator once the sap starts to flow next spring.
First you cut the dead trees out of the woods



Then you cut the tree into manageable sizes


After which you use your winch to drag it out so the tractor can take it to the sugar house for splitting

Before splitting you cut the tree into sizes that fit into the splitter


Finally, it gets split into chunks that will fit into the evaporator

He wasn't a whole lotta help


Tuesday, September 20, 2016

What the Hay!?

Don decided if he had to mow the fields anyway, he might as well make hay. He tracked down lots of used equipment, talked to local farmers on 'how-to' and then went to making hay.  His first hay sale was to a mother-of-the-bride, who wanted hay bales for hay rides at the wedding!  That sounds like a pretty fun start to the haying business.
This attachment spreads the cut  grasses out to dry


An 'all in one' attachment collects the grasses, packs it into a tight square, wraps it in baling twine, and spits it out.

Neat bales, all in a row


Monday, May 16, 2016

Getting Acquainted

Ivy, the Corgi pup and the new farm creature added to the menagerie, gets an up close introduction to the baby chicks that she's been hired to care for when she's old enough for the job.  
 

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Letting Off Steam

There's nothing like bright sunshine and sweet smelling steam to warm up a late winter day.

When they heard 'waffles' even the chickens wanted into the sugar house.

Waffles are our preferred vehicle of syrup administration

Monday, March 7, 2016

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Sugaring Season Starts for Sherman Hollow

With this unusual winter weather, lots of sugar makers have already been making syrup.  But due to Florida trips and other interferences, we've put off our season until now.  This weekend Pat and Don cleaned up the vacuum house for sap collection, and converted the Chevy Truck for the sap tank that moves sap from the vacuum house to the sugar house.
Removing the cap to make room for the tank


Prepping the bed for the tail gate

Loading the sap tank onto the tractor

Getting it all lined up

And putting it in place


Checking to make sure it's clean and ready for sap.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

We've got Wax!

All those wax caps, that held the honey tight in the honey comb, were melted off, solidifed, then saved in plastic bags.  Finally there was enough collected, that Don decided it was time to purify it so we might be able to make some candles, or lip balm, or maybe some salve.  
The process to clean up the wax was a multi-step process that involved a few trips to the kitchen supply store to get pots and sieves and cheesecloth and more.
The collected wax caps   

Don started by melting down the wax caps, in a big kettle.  You can see the caps had lots of bee debris that needed to be cleaned out.
After taking out lots of dead bees and other solids, the wax was allowed to solidify into a large disk
The disk was broken up, put into a double boiled and melted down to get poured through some cheese cloth to take out the final debris.
Some nice clean wax, ready to turn into candles and more.



Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Are the Hives Alive?

Don checks for activity in the hives, then gets a second opinion from Pat.  The prognosis is good!




Thursday, January 7, 2016

Banana Honey Tea Loaf

This recipe comes from the 1976 American Honey Queen http://www.abfnet.org/?12, Tammy Jo Inman .  That's got to be way better than being Miss America don't you think?  Anyway, you have to trust a banana bread recipe made with honey coming from such a credible source as a Honey Queen.  I tried it, and it was so good, that is rose to the top of my list of all other 20 recipes I have in my recipe box for banana bread, and even the recipe marked in The Joy of Cooking.  Here it is if you want to try it.



Banana Honey Tea Loaf

3 medium ripe bananas
1/2 cup light oil
1/3 cup honey
2 eggs well beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup chopped walnuts

·      Mash the bananas in your mixing bowl
·      Add the honey, oil, vanilla, and eggs
·      In a separate bowl stir together the dry ingredients
·      Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just mixed
·      Pour into greased loaf pan (s) and bake @ 350F for 45 to 50 minutes depending on your pan size

Nike

Nike
good 'ole Nike, we miss you!