Rhubarb

I love rhubarb. Everything about it is so lovely. The plants have big, huge leaves that look awesome in your garden. The stalks are a beautiful mulberry hue. You can cook it slowly, softening it with some sugar into a tasty, sweet treat. You can chop it up and saute it in with your stir fry. Then it retains a bit of that celery-like crunch. Rhubarb is spring's perfect treat.

Rhubarb also has the magic of bringing me back to my grandmother's kitchen when I was about 8 years old. My grandmother made everything from rhubarb in the springtime. My sister and I were sent out to her small city lot patch to carefully pull up the delightful stalks. I watched her wash and chop them, getting ready for rhubarb pie, rhubarb crisp, strawberry rhubarb jam and tomato rhubarb jelly. I'm so thankful for rhubarb every spring. It's a chance for me to spend some time reminiscing about my beloved grandmother. It's also my turn to fill my kitchen with those wonderful smells so that my girls can share in a little bit of Grandma Grace love.

If you have a favorite rhubarb recipe, please send it to me!

The Bees' New Home

So, the bees have relocated. I'm sad, sad to say. We got our bees a bit early and were in the middle of permit negotiations with our neighbors when we realized that having them in the city was just not going to happen. There is a lot of fear around bees, mainly, I believe, because we just don't have naturally occurring honeybees around any more. We're surrounded by hornets, wasps, bumblebees ~ all of which are more aggressive than the honeybee. The other fact is that simply, a lot more people are allergic to stings than ever before. One of our neighbors, we found out, carries an epi-pen with her because she is literally deathly allergic to stings. I wondering if humans' growing allergy is at all related to the fact that honeybee populations are on the decline, both naturally and commercially. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse

Since last Friday night, the bees have been exploring their new digs at my parents' cabin in Amery, WI. There are plusses and minuses to this new location. Believe it or not, the city is the best place for bees as far as pollen goes. If you live in Minneapolis, look around. The number of flowering trees and plants in our city is immense. The farm fields surrounding the cabin don't have nearly the diversity of nectar that the city offers. On the plus side, there really are no regulations for beekeeping in their area, so we can expand our hives as much as we'd like in the future.

Following their move, we inspected the hives for the first time after their installation. We were a bit worried because we took the unconventional approach and gave them empty frames with no foundation. Sure enough, both hives are thriving. They have already built out a number of frames with beautiful, natural comb. Back to the comments about nectar abundance, the comb had many different colors of nectar backed into the tiny compartments. Much of the nectar they collected in their first week was from the gigantic crab apple tree across the alley, which was their source for red nectar. It was so cool looking! I took pictures on my mom's camera, so I hope to have those soon.

We're heading up again this weekend because all of our hive bodies and equipment should be arriving this week. We'll be able to give the MN Hygienics a proper hive box.

Bees!

Our bees came in early. Instead of needing to pick them up on Saturday, they were ready on Thursday. How appropriate that they come in on Earth Day. Wednesday night we were up very, very late trying to get everything ready for their arrival. We had to seal the outside of the hive body and prepare the frames. For frame preparation we, as is our style, had to try something non-conventional. As we learned in our classes and from all of the beekeeping books we've read, you typically start your frames with pre-made foundation made of either beeswax or plastic. Essentially, the combs are already in place and the bees simply draw them out to start their brood. Instead of doing it this way, we decided to let them build their own comb, in an attempt to fend off the varroa mite - one of the many bee befallments that has been on the increase in the past ten years.

The mite grows on the larvae and then continues life on the abdomen of the bee. Some beekeepers think that the mite has become an issue as of late because we have set the size of the combs by installing foundation. We'll see how our experiment works.

We set up the two hives for our two bee packages - one Carneolian and one MN Hygienic. Paul had to fashion some make-shift parts as our second hive and other accessories are on backorder for a few weeks.

Basically, we took out two frames, opened the bee packages, removed the queen cage and dumped 15,000 bees into each hive. Then we opened the queen cage and set that in so that the queen can come out safely on her own.

After installing the bees, Paul and I headed out to dinner to celebrate our 7 year anniversary.

When we got back, we decided to open the entrance to the second hive and put the last frame into the hive since the bees had settled in a bit. Being the brave Mama of the family, I opened the hive, reached in and grabbed the queen cage out, dropped the frame in, and slid the cover back in place, and walked away with only one sting. Mind you, I was wearing no protective gear whatsoever. So far, these seem to be extremely gentle bees.

Hooray! Now Honeybee Hollow has honeybees!

Potato Patch

I love saying "potato patch" almost as much as I love going out to grabble those beauties when potato salad time comes. This weekend was time to plant the potato patch. Last year we had four varieties. All were tasty, but not all were productive. We decided to go with the Yukon Golds this year as they are our favorite and most plentiful.
For those who don't know, potato plants are grown from "seed" potatoes. All that means is that the potatoes that come in the box from Johnny's have been in the dark long enough to know that once I plant them in the ground, it's time to grow. Potatoes that you get from the store won't necessarily grow because aren't on the right schedule.
We get a box of potatoes and cut them up. Each section of potato will grow as long as it has an eye on it. An eye is the little site where a sprout looks like it could come out. No eye, no plant.
Then I just dig holes 18" apart and throw in the piece of potato.
Now I just have to wait. Nothing is more worth it than fresh potatoes.

Back in Business

After a painful process of ordering, waiting for and installing a new hard drive for my computer, I'm back in business. Apparently I had completely filled all 80G of my previous harddrive, so now I have 320G to try and fill. Game on.

What's been happening in the Hollow? We've spread compost, planted some new trees and are frantically trying to get things ready for bee delivery on April 24th. So is everyone else, apparently, as many of our items from the supplier are on backorder. Argh.

Here are some pictures of the yard, including our new apple and pear trees!

It feels like...

we should be doing this soon:

but I have a feeling that, like every year, strawberry picking season will creep up on us. This year will be different. Instead of three girls that pick and immediately consume the berries, perhaps more of them will end up in the basket, right?
Well, either way, we'll be bringing home berries and hopefully, they will go into our new freezer, which was a requirement of the Mama this year.
The other thing that's been creeping up on us is bicycle maintenance (or lack thereof). It's been so nice so soon that we haven't had a chance to tune up the pile of bikes in the garage. Luckily, the Papa's bike, which he rides year round, is always ready to go.
Here's a pic from last year:

Our food source

We were reading a library book the other day called Farms Feed the World. It talked about where our food comes from and that we also get our clothing from cotton that grows on farms. The final page had some lines about our need to respect and support farms. We close the book and Amelie says, "Well, everyone else needs farms. We don't." To which I say, "We don't? Where do you think we get all of our food and clothing?" "Our backyard", she says. Huh. If we actually tried to feed ourselves from our backyard year round, I think she'd feel a little less smug about the situation.
I feel an "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" experiment is in order in a few years.