Living on our land.

RV moved onto our land.

Thanks to BIL, BIL's friend, and BH, our RV is now on our land and we went to sleep and woke up looking at tree tops -- our tree tops!   Having never moved an RV before, I don't know if it's always such a bear to get one set up, but I do know that the new scissor jack that looks prettier than the others but refuses to work makes everything more complicated.   We also thought the pad was more level than it actually is, so if we ever do this again I'll actually break out the level and see where we may need to add more gravel before parking the behemoth.   We've enjoyed sitting outside drinking our morning coffee and sitting outside at the end of the day watching the sun set.   It's easier to notice all the wild life when we just sit still for a while.  We've also withstood our first thunderstorm, so we know that the fibreglass remained intact over the leaky roof bits.   We still have the other roof coating to put on, but it requires 24 hours of dry time, which means that we won't be able to run the A/C once we paint it on.  The plan is to put it on when we have a dry morning before heading back to the city.   The plan may turn into putting it on when it's cool enough to not need A/C.   After working outside in 98 degree heat the last few days, that sounds like a better plan to me.

Checking the English hive

Being out there first thing in the morning made it easier to check on our bees.   All of the hives except one are doing okay, but the dearth is definately upon us.   The queens are not laying and there is very little nectar in the hives.   There's still pollen coming in, but no nectar.  We found the same thing happening when we got back to the city, although one queen is still laying well.  The new queen in my English hive is very active, but has not laid any eggs yet.  We put some sugar water out and hope that jumpstarts all the queens.  

We had opened the English hive shortly after our new queen had hatched.  It was clear that she had dispatched most of her sisters, but there were two queen cells intact that we had hoped we got to before she did.   No dice.   The two-frame section of the queen castle in which we installed the cells with a couple of frames of bees from another hive contained only a few dead bees, some hive beetles, and wax moth trails.   We were disappointed and took the frames over to the shed so that we could put them in the freezer as soon as we took the suits off.   Hubby put the smoker and hive tool up, took off his jacket, turned around to pick up the frames, and, lo-and-behold, there was a brand new queen searching the frames.   Of course, all the queen isolation stuff was in the garage, but we did manage to get her into a queen cage and installed into the castle with a couple of frames of bees, larvae, and honey.     We're pretty sure we have a drone congreation area in our yard as we have found an abnormal number of queens and I've even had mating bees clinging to my tshirt!

Figs, July 11, 2016

Finding the queen would have been enough excitement for one day, but we also picked 3 pounds of figs that ripened while we were gone.   I currently have mason jars sterilizing in the dishwasher and will start making jam just as soon as I finish my second cup of coffee.   I want to try using honey instead of sugar (or using a mixture of the two) this year, but I'll do that with a small batch later.    Honey-whiskey ribs are already a big hit in our house.   I have an entire book of honey recipes to try, so we'll keep feeding the bees in hopes that they will feed us in return.  

Experimenting with canning.

Figs:
We have had a fig tree in our yard for 10 years, but have left most of the figs for the birds until this summer.  As our thoughts moved toward retirement and how and where we want to spend it, I decided to retry canning -- something I have done sporadically since learning how in high school.  The figs seemed like a good place to start.

The first recipe (see link) I found is the one I used all summer, with some modifications.   With just one tree, I was making small batches of 1 - 2 pounds of figs at a time and found that I needed to add more water.  After a few batches, I also grew tired of all the chopping and started tossing the figs in the food processor and using dried lemon peel.  The food processor actually made the jam better because the pieces of fig were smaller.  (They were probably what they should have been in the first place, but that's a lot of slicing and dicing.)   I eventually developed a routine of picking figs first thing in the morning and again early evening.  If I had just made a batch of jam, I picked figs that were still firm.  As I gathered more figs toward my ideal quantity of at least 2 pounds, I allowed them to ripen more.  Figs that were almost ripe in the morning were pecked by birds by mid-afternoon, so how long to leave the figs on the tree became a balancing act.

One day, we were going out of town and didn't have enough figs to make a batch, but I did have apples.  Fig and apple jam is good, but I later found that fig and blueberry jam is even better!   With 10 jars of fig jam in the pantry, the addition of other flavors was a fortunate experiment.

Orange Marmelade
I was so excited over the fig jam success, that I tried my hand at orange marmelade.  It was a lot of work and peeling the pith from the inside of the skin was a far more tedious job than suits my personality.  After all that slicing, and chopping, and cooking, and cleaning, the marmelade didn't set.  I eventually dumped it all back into a pot and added orange jello.  It still hasn't set 4 months later, and it never really tasted the way it should.  I have thought about pouring it into a cake pan and using it in a as a substitute for pineapple in an upside down pineapple cake, but I've also thought about just pouring it down the drain and freeing up my mason jars!

Baked Beans
For years, I cooked beans in a crock pot, but a year ago I bought an enameled cast iron Dutch oven and have been much happier with the results.  My two favorite recipes are Carribean Black Beans and Boston Baked Beans from The Joy of Cooking cook book.  I have only canned Boston Baked Beans, and found that I need to add more water than the recipe calls for if I want to pour the beans into cans without leaving air pockets.    I also tried to substitute peppered bacon for the salt pork, but when my husband came home with salt pork, I found out that sticking to the recipe as far as that goes produces better beans!   (After 30 years in the South, I'm finally using salt pork!)

Freezing beans is easier, but regardless of the type of plastic container I have used, I always end up with some beans becoming freezer burned.  Canned beans can't be stored for very long, but a batch of 2 pounds of dried beans doesn't last us more than a couple of months anyway.  We don't have to deal with freezer burn, and we don't have to defrost the beans so it's easier to just grab a jar from the pantry.

I have tried adding curry powder (after eating some Heinz curry beans) and red pepper flakes to the recipe, but always go back to the original, unadulterated recipe, other than the extra water.   After filling the jars, I can the beans in my pressure cooker for 75 minutes.  I can fit 5 jars in the pressure cooker, so I usually end up with a couple of jars in the refrigerator (unpressurized) for immediate use and 5 jars for longer-term storage in the pantry.

There probably won't be any new adventures in canning until next summer when our garden and my brother-in-law's farm start producing again.  I know for sure that I'm not going to try marmelade again!