Pass the honey, Honey. Pass the sugar, Sugar. Pass the tea, Bag?

"We're putting it on Wax,(it's the new style)"

Yep, that is a quote.

Well we decided to try something new, we like honey, we use a lot of honey, and it smells awesome. So what have we got planned? Bees wax candles, Why? Cause we need to make a mess somehow. but at least it is a mess that smells good.

raw, pre-cut, dirty, smells awesome

I purchased some raw bees wax from a local apiary, where I go to get the liquid gold. On this trip I asked if I could purchase 5lbs of wax also; show up and there it is, chipped off the old block with a chisel and marteau. Fill up a few jars of honey and we're off. So then after about a day of the block sitting on the computer desk and smelling terrific, I decide to start chipping it into smaller pieces to ease the melting process. This is a little bit of a task, so I make up a double boiler with an old mason jar, old pot, and a coiled up piece of copper wire. Filled the mason jar with water and placed my chisel and putty knife into the mason jar to heat up. I then push the chisel and putty knife into the wax till it starts breaking apart and repeat this process till I am left with pieces in the 2"-3" with a ton of little chips and flakes everywhere. They look like good sizes for quicker melting, so I start melting them down in the double boiler system.  While that is happening I start creating a makeshift filtering system, now that's the secret part can't let that one out. Filter is made, wax still melting. after about 30mins wax has fully melted. Pour wax through filtering media, onto baking pan... old baking pan, lined with parchment paper.

All chopped up.

She's always there happy to help, dangerous or safe

Getting wax off stuff is a pain in the ass,and anything used quickly becomes something old and something you don't care about. Kind of like how North Americans treat our elderly in old age homes.... ouch that's a sore spot. So was that wax that just dripped on my hand. Use caution and PPE.

All the crud left in the filter media

found this little fella, in the filter too. 

After filtering the wax and letting it harden it takes on a lighter colour since dirt and debris have been removed. Yes, if it is previously unfiltered it is going to have dirt, propolis, pollen, bees and bee parts, and who knows what else.

The whole process makes your house smell nice and sweet like honey.

Hot Chocolate Part Duex

So, I wrote a post with a recipe for Hot Chocolate last year, but I love the stuff too much, who can blame me right?! RIGHT!

So I am Lactose intolerant, that store bought junk just messes me up big time. So last year was an experiment in the making of hot chocolate. I just wanted to control what was in it. There still is a lot of sugar in it, which I might try experimenting with this year or next what ever comes first. But alas there is only skim milk powder where I live. Then I got adventurous, I looked on the internet went to these weird sites about alternative foods not found in your local grocery store cause they are the devil, am I right? YA! So doing some incognito web surfing(chrome has a setting for that) and I found Rice Milk powder, Soy Milk powder, other Milk Powders, Cocaine Powders....no, no I didn't, and last but not least Coconut Milk Powders, YEAH! BITCH!

So I go down to the local Health food Shop, Jo Annes, sneek aboot look in the baking section there, bammo there it is White Gold. So I takes that back home.  Mix up a little chocolove slam that back and then life was born on the 9th day.

So in all seriousness back to the recipe. AND pictures this time.

1 3/4cp  -  Cocoa Powder
1 3/4cp  -  Powdered Sugar
2 cp       -  Coconut Milk Power
1 tbsp     -  Corn Starch
1 tsp       -  Salt

All the Ingredients in the bowl, sifted but not mixed.

Everything all mixed up.

Sitting Pretty.

Looks like something out of a 70's magazine, But better.

Peace, I'm off to work.

Who smells like garlic?

I smell like garlic! Those who dout me, take a whiff.

This is our first attempt at growing garlic, K cleared out the community garden last week, I planted 194 cloves in it tonight. We really like garlic, almost all our recipes call for garlic and we usually double it. So hopefully if all goes well we will never have to buy it again...... maybe.

We got the garlic from a friend who grows copious amounts of garlic. All together there were 46 bulbs, 40 Music or "Musica" is another name thrown around, so I've heard and read a few times. It is a Porcelain variety which netted me 155 cloves of really good size. 6 Persian Star, which are of the Purple stripe varieties and got 39 cloves.

I really don't know a whole lot about growing it so I read quite a bit about it, and talked to some of our friends. Everyone seemed to be in the same boat with depth and spacing.

This is what we started with, spent a little bit of time separating them while watching some shows.

This is where all those cloves ended up. My rows aren't the straightest, but that's alright to me! I tend to wobble a little too.

And then it got dark @ 5:30, so this is how it ended.

194 so that's 8 rows of 24, two of those rows may have had 25 in them, you do the math. Rows are 10" apart, planted 6-8" apart and 3-4" deep with 2" of mulch and going to throw some more on there this week before the neighbours get rid of their leaves. Straw is a preferable mulch, but we had plenty of leaves off the neighbours lawn and he already bagged it so half the job was already done. That's permaculture right there, let someone else do half the work... haha I kid. But seriously straw would have been better, the leaves are going to turn into a mat, in the spring when the leaves thaw we will have to loosen them up so as to let the little garlics poke out. Just another reason to get out of the house and out of doors earlier in the season I guess.

well

Adios Amigos. Go listen to Ramones now.

Community Garden!

This is a video K. took while visiting the community garden plot. This was the first year we purchased a community garden plot, we enjoyed it. Reasons for the plot this year was because we don't have enough room for Cucurbits.

Cucurbitaceae is a plant family with hundreds of plants, Squashes, Pumpkins, Gourds, Cucumbers, Melons and lots and lots of things. Among all those things, they also like allot of room. We had three plants in there two watermelons and one squash, which we trained to just go around themselves many, many times. We ended up getting 4 Moon and stars watermelon and probably 12 to 14 Delicata Squash.

Also in the garden were Bush Beans, Garlic, Onions, and one poor nasturtium that was swallowed up by the vines but was still alive at the end.

6 experimental garlic, that were trans planted from a cell pack to the plot in mid spring. It really didn't have much time to make it. The garlic we did get from it was strong, it would have scared away any signs of a cold coming on, it burnt the tongue.

A bunch of Onions which only half started growing, and the ones that did ranged from small to 1 very large all red.

Beans, Bush Beans of the green variety. Well they did really, really well 6 plants, which were a struggle to start due to 3 or 4 year old seed, numerous attempts soaking, drowning, sprouting in paper towel, and just sowing directly in the plot. Beans,beans, beans we did get, were never with out, those 6 plants left us with 2 meals a week, for the two of us which was perfect.

                                         

Peace,
Time to get something done around here!

Getting to the end

I am not really good at keeping up with regular posts I have failed a few times already at trying to up date regularly, but I am doing it now so get over it.

The date is August 12th 2013, I am featured watering the plants and petting Herc while hes lounging in the grass, Zoey our fluffy ridiculous cat also makes an appearance, and some bees.

Tomatoes have really started producing at this point and everything is flowering.

thanks for watching, now go to bed
PEACE.

Tea Time

This is old forgot to post.
Tea, so many flavours, so many different ways to make it, so many different ingredients, so many different cultures, many many different things. My all time favorite is Lapsang Soochong....... no, no it is not actually I don't like it much at all I use it for something completely different from tea since I was so disappointed, maybe I will release my secret use for lapsang in the future. Really my favorite tea is Chai one of my old bosses said he thought North Americans were funny, cause we call it Chai Tea, because Chai means tea, so we are saying Tea Tea, he is Persian.

Well as I am making a big ole batch of tea for a pot luck at Greenshire Eco Farms, I will post my recipe.

So the way I make my Chai for a small batch enough for a few cups.

5-8      -  Cardamom pods (bruised/opened by pressing down with the back of a                   spoon or smashed with a mortar and pestle)

5-8      -  Cloves

5-8      -  Black Pepper corns

tbsp     -  Minced Ginger root

1"        -  piece of a Cinnamon stick broken up

3 or 4  -  Tea Bags (I use orange pekoe caffeinated and decaffeinated depending                 on when I'm making it)

1/2cp   -  Milk (soy, Almond, Coconut, or regular)

4 cp     -  Water

1 tbsp  -   Honey or to taste

bring water to a boil, add everything but the tes bags and milk, reduce to a simmer.
Simmer for about 5 mins or your house smells awesome, throw in the milk, tea and honey.

There you go my version (probably stolen or elaborated from someone somewheres) DEAL WITH IT.

Peace I'm out.

Another Video.....

Here is another quick video of our garden 17 days after the last video. It was a bright sunny day with wind. Please keep speakers down wind blowing can be a little loud. I have been pretty busy didn't have time to post this a lot of fancy book learnin been going on studying for EGSA (Electrical Generating Systems Assosiation) exam, taking online John Deere courses, and working way to many hours.

Here is the Vid starring Herc (our furry friend) at the end.

July 2nd 2013

This video is from July 2nd, the highlight of this video is the black cat Boss, who distracts the director during a few moments of filming and the giant cherry tomato plant. Everything looks a lot better in this video, all the plants have taken root and taken off very well, this is where the real excitement of gardening comes in. So with out further ado the video.