Must Find/Buy/Make

I got our bikes out of storage today. Filled tires, re-fitted kids, gathered supplies and we were off on our first bike ride of the season. Oh how I love biking. I think it is my favorite mode of transportation. I would love to see the world on a bike. Has the same charm of hiking but you cover way more ground. Every year particularly at the first of the season, I have moments of decreased productivity as I am caught away day dreaming of biking far distances with my kids, or summers of no car usage and so forth. Then I try to figure out how can I do this today with young kids - a couple of free-loaders with only fair endurance? And so I design in my head ways drag everyone with me. 2 years ago I came up with this and we are still using it today. It was/is great but there are two problems. I can't stand up to pedel making hills even harder then they already were with an extra 100 pounds. And 2 Xander is now almost 4 and is pretty much too big for the chair and he is ready to start pedeling. Soren is still on training wheels (this summers goal) and for any long distances would need the option to hook up even if he was off traning wheels. So, we need a new plan.

Upon researching options that have already been made I found this picture

I want this. Correction - I must have this!! Oh my word - I love it. double wheels in the back to increase stability and you could carry gear. Sign me up! Sadly they have stopped making them years ago and they are very hard to find. Disturbing news I know, and yet I don't feel limited. Hmmmmmm, could I make this or something like it? My brother in law does have a welding machine. The wheels have begun turning. Excuse me, I need to google now.

Energy Medicine

My Mom was diagnosed with an auto immune disease about 3 plus years ago. When my Dad somewhat suddenly died 2 years ago her health really went in the tubes due to the stress of it all. After 9 months of going to doctor after doctor and trying many many different antibiotics and treatments with no respite, she began to branch out to alternative medicine. Luckily she has found many things that has helped her immensely. One of those thing was Quantum Biofeedback - a type of energy medicine. It gave her such positive results she decided to buy this machine and become trained on it so to help others who are struggling to find things to medically help them. The whole thing is fascinating. Go check her website at

www.thompsonbiofeedback.com

She lives in Bellevue Washington and if you or any of your family or friends have any health, or stress issues, I highly recommend trying some sessions out. They are incredibly relaxing and may just change your life as it has my Mom's.

Actual Hard work

I am having some bloggers block. We have been super busy in the Harris home/yard. But it all just seem so blah, boring and not that entertaining in my head. Well, at least not that blog worthy. I need a good story. I secretly like it when my life is filled with shocking stories and crazy events that evoke a "Oh my word, you have got to be joking me!!" - although I really only like the wild ones that do not provoke tears. Surprise and borderline shock = good. Tears and disbelief = bad. It is a fine line.

So, even though it is probably skim worthy I write this for posterity.

What have we been up to?? We cut down a small forest of dead limbs and trunks and trees (curtsy our goats and nature) and I got really good at using a chainsaw. This made a pile of 10ft x 40ft x 5 feet of trees and branches that we chipped and shredded to about 8 - 10 yards of bark. (that was fun - feel free to read with sarcasm) Then I brought in 15 yards of compost and amended my soil as it is now crap due to the build (my fault and I sort of hate myself for it and praying it won't plague me for years) rototilled it extensively and educated myself somewhat and bought a bunch of ordimental plants for the first time in my life and planted them - although most are bee friendly. Then I basically did the same to my veggie garden and planted all the cold weather crops with my friend Elizabeth who we will be doing a veggie garden together with due to her lack of sun in her lot and my extreme love of co-partnering with humans on pretty much anything I do. I also started a herb garden for the first time, removed my sick and poorly prunned pear trees and replaced them with cherry trees. I am also putting in 3- 5 new blueberry bushed attempting to grow blueberry bushes that get bigger then a foot tall (the goats may have something to do with that as well. Curse you electric fence!!). May I just say I feel so relieved all that work is done. I would like to give a special thanks to Ryan and the missionaries for all their help. Love those farmer missionaries. They are the best at manual labor!! I want my boys to work like that. Now if I can only find miles of pipe in Renton for them to move morning and night for years..... (I will post pics of the yard in a few days - I have to work tomorrow and it is dark now)

We are going to be replacing what we lost and farming smarter.....hopefully. We have 33 eggs incubating and should hatch in 2 weeks - always good fun. It will be an interesting experiment because 2 of the eggs have cracked. Apparently someone can pop the lock off the door knob and despite stories of horrific chick deaths the perpetrator seems unswade. I asked, Soren, "Did you go see the chick eggs without me?" After a little coaxing he replied, "Yeah, I took a knife to the lock and and showed Abby the eggs." Super! After some research I learned that if you put nail polish on the eggs to seal the cracks it might be just fine. Nail polish? Sounds like brain damage to me!! - But what the heck, I have never seen a brain damaged chicken before.......or have I? I also have another package of bees coming that same weekend. It reminds me of the weekend where I helped my goat birth a problematic set of triplets and installed my first package of bees (alone) all in the same weekend. Now that was blog worthy. I may have to backpost that story as I now have pictures to match.

This picture makes me chuckle. Right before this picture there instructions were "point to the eggs and look excited" Way to go Soren. You nailed it! ;)

Hard work

There is much to back post - until then I leave you with Xander's new favorite line-

"Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Let me put this in context for you.

Quinae "Xander can you buckle up?"

Xander "Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Quinae "Xander can you clear your plate?"

Xander "Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Soren "Xander can you pass me a army guy?"

Xander "Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Hmmmm. I guess he needs a little education on what hard work is - suggestions??

RIP Chickens

Wow. This has been a bad farming week. Why is everything dying? 5 of my 6 chickens are dead or gone. Something big like dogs or a coyote came over and had a good old time. There were puffs of feathers all over my yard and one dead chicken. The others are either dead or scared so bad they ran and can't find their way home. I only have one very sad, nervous, PTSD chicken left. I am a officially a farming failure. I didn't really even have a farm and now almost everyone is dead. I am in mourning. Okay mourning may be a bit too strong. But I am bummed. Totally bummed!

RIP Honeybees

Remember my Beehive I built and place a 3 pound package of bees inside in the spring of 2009? Well, they died recently. Sigh. I had seen them out and about in February when we had some warm days, but about a week ago the weather was warm enough for them to be out, but they weren't. I opened my hive and my fear was confirmed. They were all dead. It was a bit of a sad sight. The hive had gobs of bees and gobs of honey. There were many bees still holding on to the comb and many trying to eat out of empty combs. After much internet search and contacting experienced beekeepers, I believe the bees starved to death. We had a cold snap about 2 weeks ago for several days and the bees couldn't move much and the honey was just one comb too far away. Isn't that sad. to die of starvation when food is literally only inches away.

Whenever I have a cool farm thing going on I try to get some young kids in on the action to check it out. I love teaching about this stuff.

This is a honey comb, not fully capped. The capped honey is perfect honey all set for storage. The uncapped part (the darker part) is basically "watery" honey. It hadn't been fully evaporated and finished the process. Some of the uncapped stuff was crystalized which I thought was interesting.

The bee graveyard. Boo! - not boo as in scary boo but boo as in "not cool" and "lame"

When I was in Africa and harvested honey for the first time, I ate honey right from the comb on site. It was a warmer day and the honey was a bit warm. It was the most amazing honey I have ever had. So, now I think I should eat honey straight from the comb whenever I harvest honey.

I have a tendency to make whoever I am around eat things I grow/harvest ect.

Low tech way of separating my honey from the comb. Crush the come and sift it through nylons. This is an incredibly slow way of harvesting honey however it is sediment free. I switched to just straining it trough a metal mesh strainer which was much MUCH faster but leaves a little bit of sediment.
One jar is raw organic honey, the other the comb left overs. Now I am trying to figure out how to purify my wax to make some candle........or maybe just one. One comb doesn't make a lot of wax. I know I look gorgeous. I am really working the pioneer woman angle. If only I could be cute and productive, it just seems to allude me.

Overall I am actually impressed how well they faired over the last 2 years. You see honeybees are not indigenous here as it is quite wet. Then to boot we are having a global epidemic of the death of honeybees. Then to add to to that most typical hives require a lot of treatments of antibiotics, feedings, and re-queening to keep alive. My hive was for the most part was ignored and left to nature to decide its't fate. Many "typical" beekeepers told me my bees would die a lot sooner. Plus all the traditionalist (which is most beekeepers) booed my top bar hive design. So the good news is, my bees did not get sick and have enough foliage around and about to make enough honey (even during last summer which was colder then most). The top bar design was a good little home and now I know I should re-arrange some combs to facilitate closer honey for this next winter, my bees hopefully should do well. I thought I would wait a year to get more bees since I have so much yard work, but the more I work with the honey and wax, the more I want them again now. Bees are seriously cool!

The secret to Home Depot

A few days ago Xander and I went to Home Depot. We were in the electrical aisle when Xander wasn't looking where he was going and bumped his head on something protruding from the aisle. It was a hard bump and he cried pretty good. A Home Depot employee saw the event and was very concerned for Xander. He was fine. It didn't even leave a bump just a little scratch. If they only know what he does at home. Anyway the employee couldn't let it go and was so concerned and kept trying to help and with every questions the employee asked Xander would wail louder and lauder. He asked if Xander needed a bandaid and I said yes just to get the guy away for a bit. Sure enough a Xander stopped crying 30 seconds after he left. By the time he came back Xander was fine and chatting up a storm with this guy. We got on the topic of how all the workers wear orange shirts and apron when the employee brings up these Saturday workshops where kids can come and build things and get their own orange apron. Knowing you have to be 5 to do those I popped that bubble pretty quick for Xander telling him the rule. Then Xander says to the employee, "Who is in charge here? Maybe they will let me go." The employee thought that was so enchanting he left with a new mission. I was just grateful he was gone thinking we are all done with those shinangons and I could get what I came for. I found the electrical guy (who clearly knew nothing) and was asking him a bunch of questions and had just finished clarifying, "so what your saying is you don't really know the difference between these lights?" when the manager comes walking up bearing gifts with 3 other employees. They had a home depot apron and car kit to build. While the manager was talking to Xander he asked what that button was on her apron. She then was like, "Do you want that. You can have it?" Then she took it off and gave it to him. Wow, these people are desperate not to be sued. The manager brought up the kid class and I asked if Xander had to be 5 and she says, "How old is he? 3? Wow, well I think he is ready for this class. He said he builds stuff all the time. If you have any problems you just tell them Shirley said it was okay that he goes." I immediately wondered what else the name Shirley could do for me.

Needless to say I think every time I am at Home Depot I am going to start ramming my own head into things.......maybe I could get some free paint.