Green Beans, Dryer Balls, and Bees

Summer vacation after my first full year of teaching is somewhat bittersweet. It is too short and I'm too tired! But, alas, after an entire week of doing absolutely nothing, I have gotten back on track with my goal to use this time wisely to improve our sustainable living habits.

Although today was not our first harvest from the mini-farm, it is the most promising. With dozens of green tomatoes waiting to ripen, several melon blossoms waiting to pollinate, and tiny crowns of broccoli waiting to grow, the future looks mighty tasty. There are a few orange tomatoes, but the harvest of today is from my Kentucky Wonder Pole beans. A few weeks ago, I plucked a single green bean from the vine and graciously offered it to our sugar gliders. They were thrilled. Today, I received seven green beans. Just enough for a good side to my dinner. These are more plump than the haricot vert you typically get at a Chinese restaurant, so you need less of them. My favorite way to eat them, however, does follow the Chinese tradition. I simply blanch them for one to two minutes (basically place them in a pot of boiling water) or until the green color seems the brightest. Then I put them in a frying pan with either butter or sunflower oil and some browned garlic. Eat 'em while they're hot!

Something I have always wanted to try is using wool dryer balls. I have heard great things about them. They apparently tumble out the static from your clothes, they decrease drying time by creating

air pockets between clothing, and if you put essential oils on them, they are as good as scented dryer sheets but better for the environment and your family. The downside:  to get four of these things it is almost $40. Well, for $8.24 I bought wool yarn, and for free, I looked up the directions on how to make them! Here is the link to the actual site where I learned how to make them:  http://www.seasonedhomemaker.com/2012/11/how-to-make-felted-wool-dryer-balls.html. I pinned this after coming across it on another site that I am officially in love with:  http://thehomesteadsurvival.com/. They also have a facebook page. Anyways, I have created six dryer balls and still had some yarn left over. Laundry day is Sunday in our house, so we will see how they work out.

Lastly, I wanted to update the beekeeping events of late. My husband and I discovered that the bees have been so productive, that they had nearly filled the entire hive. Four medium hive boxes had all been drawn out with comb and filled, two with brood, and two with honey! To give them some more space we removed one of the frames from one honey super (really...it was for their space...not for the desire to have honey...really). Currently it sits in the freezer, because we are not sure which is the best way to extract the honey just yet. Our investment in this project has been higher than expected and we really don't want to invest in extracting equipment just yet. We had read that it would be a year before we would be able to take from them. So we had some decision making to do in regards to the hive.

Our mentor told us that we should go ahead and put in another brood box and add two more honey

supers. This requires a little more investment as well. We had already ordered a single box when we were able to reach her, and the shipping is not cheap. She also told us that only one honey super needs to remain for the bees over the winter. (If we also intended to provide sugar water.) To be on the safe side, however, we have decided to keep the hive small this year. While having eight hive boxes might be a reality at some point, it is a little more than we can handle right now. Besides, the queen seems to be laying at a good rate and there appear to be bees in all stages of life present:  egg, larva, pupa, bee. It appears that she is handling the space just fine. So, today I have added the new box as a honey super. Our goal is to leave them with two honey supers for the winter and harvest one for ourselves. That still gives us about 30 lbs of honey!

We are very excited and happy about what we have accomplished already this year. We drive by two locations in our area with bee hives, and in comparison, ours appears much more active and healthy. It might be because they are new and healthy, but it also might be some of our own skill and care.

Happy Homesteading!