BEE-ING PRODUCTIVE.
I am so happy! My day was full of BEES! (If you didn't already know this about me, I love bees. Like, really love them. Beekeeping is the reason I first became interested in farming.) Today started with me mailing off my deposit to ShadeTree Honey Farm for my nuc! ShadeTree is a wonderful, all-natural apiary in Mount Sterling, and a "nuc" is basically a few frames of bees and a queen. I will be picking up my bees in the spring and transplanting the frames into my own hive. I am so excited about this for many reasons....mainly because these bees will be relatively LOCAL, meaning they are already well acclimated to our farm. The fact that they are being transported in their own frames also means they will be somewhat established. This ensures for a relatively smooth transition to their new hive! Wooo!
And speaking of the hive, I started building mine! I worked today on the hive body, which is what I will transfer the nuc into. Once the bees fill up all the frames within the body, you add a "super" onto the top of the hive body. Jesse and I hope to drive sometime this week to Dadant in Frankfort to get the rest of the supplies I need, but I am pretty proud of my progress! It might be a little premature, but I am so anxious for my little bees to get here!
It was a lot of fun putting together the hive. One day I hope to LITERALLY build my own...cutting the wood myself, cutting down the trees to make the wood, growing the trees...you get the idea. But still, I am glad to have used the "some-assembly-required" rather than "pre-assembled" version. Even if it's only hammering a few nails, there is a sense of satisfaction at the end of the day in being able to say that I (sort of) built it myself. And while I was busy constructing, Jesse was being a Super Husband and cooking lunch. Bugtussle sausage burgers and sweet potato fries!
Now all I need is the super, the bees, and a nice coat of paint! It should preferably be a light color (to reflect light/heat), which is why most beehives are white. That's pretty boring if you ask me...any color suggestions? - Hannah.
WINE + MARKET.
Jesse and I have been a bit under the weather this week, but we couldn't resist the pull of the sunshine today! Seriously...60 degrees...in January. Kind of terrifying, but also really lovely! Hoping the warmth would heal our sickly selves, we made our way to Lexington to try out a place called Wine + Market.Simply put, we were not disappointed. This small corner of W. Second and Jefferson is hard to describe...it's not really a restaurant, but they have gourmet sandwiches like the duck confit with gorgonzola and apples. It's not a bakery...but there are baskets of fresh bread, nutella brownies, and macaroons. It's not a cafe, but an shiny red espresso machine hides in the corner. There is a beautiful case overflowing with amazing cheese and meats, rows of dried herbs and fresh vegetables, shelves full of Kentucky Proud products, and a bowl of fruit on each table. Wine + Market is essentially what it claims to be: a market, full of locally-made products. That means they sell sandwiches made from local cheeses, fruit, and meats on bread from Sunrise Bakery a few blocks away, and they also sell bags of Weisenberger Mill flour and cold bottles of Ale-8. It was very charming.PLUS: the back room is a wine shop! Many of Jesse's favorite natural wines were available, and he was able to have some nerdy wine conversations with the owner, something I can't often indulge him in. Here is the bottle we ended up buying:
I was rooting for the one with donkeys on it! Along with the wine, we had a delicious lunch and a really lovely afternoon. I would absolutely recommend this place - whether you need a cup of coffee and a pastry, a pound of salami, goat cheese, a loaf of fresh bread, a red velvet cupcake, a warm duck panini sandwich, or a good bottle of beer or wine. They also sell gift baskets full of local products (a GREAT idea!) and they have wine tastings and events.
Jesse and I left Wine + Market with bellies full of tasty soup and sandwiches. That, along with the sunshine, has us feeling much better! It was the perfect sick-day adventure, and we hope to do it again soon (minus the sick part!)
- Hannah.
BARRELS OF CRAIGSLIST FUN.
When I read the words "Wine Barrel For Sale" I tried desperately to ignore it. And by 'tried desperately" I mean I immediately asked Hannah if I could buy it. I've looked into barrels before. Used oak barrels are not cheap––generally around $100-$150, and that's not including shipping––so $40 was a pretty enticing price tag. Once she gave me the OK, I gave the guy a call and the next thing I knew I was coming home with a beautiful, fifty- something gallon wine barrel once used.The man who owned the barrel used to work for Woodford Reserve "before the 2009 layoffs." Apparently Woodford had purchased hundreds of used barrels from "Sonoma Cutter" which I'm pretty sure means Sonoma Cutrer, the makers of a commercially popular chardonnay. Producers like that typically use these barrels for one year to suck all of the oaky flavor out of them and then they sell them or find other uses. Woodford purchased a number of these uncharred barrels to make a special batch of Sonoma Cutrer whiskey. They poured two bottles of wine into each barrel of whiskey and let it age for a year. The barrel I bought today was a leftover, thankfully never used in the batch and thus never tainted by the whiskey. He had bought it when Woodford decided they didn't need it anymore and never used it himself so he decided to get rid of it. That's when he got a call from your's truly.I have no immediate intentions for this barrel, though I've dreamt of plenty of possibilities. I've imagined it as a rain barrel in the garden with a hose running out of the bottom. Or it would make a good table, a piece of glass fixed to the top and maybe an umbrella. Even a life as a container in which to stir biodynamic preparations would be a worthy use, but nothing trumps my want for it to fulfill its destiny as a wine barrel and fill it with bubbling fruit juice. It might not be soon, and it might not be ever, but if the opportunity ever arises and fifty gallons of wine present themselves, I'll finally have a place to put them for a couple of years. No matter what, it'll make a pretty excellent addition to the farm.- Jesse.
(UN)FOLLOWING THE RECIPE.
Let us discuss the website Pinterest....I know I am slow to the game here, but it is the best thing. And also maybe the worst. Somehow, it manages to be an amazing source of inspiration, while simultaneously being an amazing source of complete time-wasting. Still, I often find great DIY ideas, organizing tips, or recipes - like this one. For whatever reason, pumpkin cookies sounded really delicious and necessary to me at the exact moment I came across this pin, so I baked them. Well, sort of.Often when I come across a recipe I want to try, I change it. Not because I know better (trust me, I don't) but because I don't want to use corn starch, or corn syrup, or sugar, or canned pumpkin, or some other ick ingredient. And most of the time, it truly doesn't matter! As long as I follow the basic measurements, even if my end product is slightly different in texture or appearance, it always tastes great! In the case of this pumpkin cookie recipe, I didn't want to use canned pumpkin and I didn't have the real thing, so I substituted butternut squash. Butternut squash is actually wonderful to bake with. It has a spicy sort of flavor and is similar to pumpkin. It even makes a great pie! I also cut the recipe in half, used honey instead of sugar (although I did add a little bit of brown sugar), and substituted real butter for Crisco. As for the icing, I didn't have cream cheese around, but my days baking for Whole Foods taught me nothing if not how to make a fantastic chocolate frosting. And sense I cut out a lot of sugar in the cookies, I splurged a bit with the icing! In the end, it all comes down to making a recipe work for you. If you are trying to eat healthier or give up a certain food, you don't necessarily have to sacrifice that recipe you love. It certainly worked out for me this time!So, here is the recipe for...
Hannah's Not-Pumpkin Cookies with Not-Cream Cheese Icing:
COOKIE INGREDIENTS:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup honey
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 cup cooked butternut squash
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 3 cups flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ginger
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
The first part of this recipe is the one that takes the most time: baking the squash. It is, however, incredibly simple. You put the squash, AS IS, in the oven and bake at 350 until you can easily poke a fork in it (45 minutes to an hour). I put mine in a little bread pan, just in case there was any leakage. After it cools, you can remove the skin and scoop out the seeds and guts. What is left should give you about a cup of mushy, orange squash.Then, you mix all your ingredients! Cream the butter and honey/sugar together first, next adding the egg, and continuing to add the ingredients as they appear on the list. The mixture is not incredibly thick, so use a spoon to place golf ball-sized clumps onto a cookie sheet. Cook for about ten minutes at 350. This recipe makes (even after cutting it in half) A LOT - about 2 1/2 dozen HUGE, really light and fluffy cookies. I removed the cookies as soon as I saw the edges becoming even slightly brown, but I like really chewy cookies.
FROSTING INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 3 tbsp cocoa
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
Whip the ingredients together for several minutes. If you're fancy, you could actually use a mixer, but hand-whipping works just as well! Stick the frosting in the fridge for a while as the cookies cool, and it will be a perfect spreadable texture when you are ready to ice!