BEE HIVE - Supers

I posted this picture last week showing Mickey working on his 2 new Super's to add to the 2 Bee Hives he has. I am showing just one again to show the process.

Here is one of the finished supers. Mickey built two of the boxes, that look like drawers, first. Then he gave them each 2 coats of white paint. Next he assembled the 8 frames that go into each super. After the frames are assembled then he adds a sheet of wax foundation which is the foundation for the cells which the bees will "build out" and fill with honey. Then the finished Super, as you see in the last picture, goes on top of the hive.

I have posted the Pineapple Banana Nut bread recipe I baked the other day at Hands & Hearts.....for HIM frugal blog. Hope you'll come by and have a look. It really is a moist, yummy recipe.

SHOW & TELL #9 - Drawing Gifts

Participating in Show & Tell Fridays at Kelli's is one of my favorite things to do. If you haven't participated I encourage you to do so!!!! Go here and learn all about it, sign up on Mr. Linky and then spend some time visiting the blogs of the participants and see the wonderful items they Show & Tell.

Remember the wonderful 3 gifts I won recently when Tammy of Country Girl At Home celebrated her 200th post with a give-away? And, then won even more in getting to meet Tammy. My 8th blog friend to meet in real life!!!!

(click to enlarge picture)

Today I wanted to show you how these lovely gifts look now that they have found their permanent home at my house. This small area is between the window and the baker's rack that hold plants and cookbooks....the minute I took the items out of the box I knew just where their home was to be.

The shelf, that Jason made!!! (I am so impressed with that!), is just the right size to house 5 of my smaller Angel collection. From left to right, on the top shelf are 1) 2 little angel girls holding a "Best Friends"sign. This was a gift from my forever friend, Joan. We've known each other since we were 6 & 7 years old. 2)My angel that I bought when we visited Nova Scotia in 2000. She is clothed in the Nova Scotia tartan blue plaid. 3) This lovely metal angel was a gift from my blog friend, Retha, who lives in So. Africa and had it made especially for me and shipped to me. I was, and am still, so touched by this.

Sitting on the pegs below are 1) a little raggy angel that I bought for myself and I don't remember when or where, but I just love her. 2) this is a 1979 Christmas angel ornament.

Hanging below the shelf is the "Believe" stichery piece. I just love them both and how perfectly they go together and look. The small pineapple bowl (not shown) sits on top of my nearby hutch.

In addition to participating in Show and Tell here at Penless Writer I am also participating in it on my frugal blog,...Hands & Hearts.....for HIM. Please go here and see what I am Showing & Telling there.

AROUND OUR HOUSE

Lots of summer activity going on around our house so I thought I'd share a little bit of it with you this morning.

(click on picture to enlarge)

Four of the five greens Mickey harvested for me.

Mustard greens to the far left, one variety of lettuce, Swiss chard, another lettuce

The fifth, leaf lettuce. These are so yummy and I love making a huge salad with all but the mustard greens.

This is the first time Mickey has grown Mustard Greens so I had to look up how to cook them. Here is the very good and very simple recipe.

Braised Mustard Greens

4 slices bacon, chopped

3 bunches mustard greens, trimmed & chopped

2 tablespoons white vinegar

2 teaspoons sugar

Coarse salt

2 Cups chicken broth (I make my own)

Directions: In a large skillet over medium high heat brown bacon and render its fat. Add chopped greens to the pan in batches and turn until they wilt, then add more greens. When all of the greens are in the pan, add vinegar and cook a minute. Season greens with sugar and salt. Add chicken broth to the pan and cover. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer greens 15 to 20 minutes then serve.

This is very good and I have made two batches of it so far.

We have been picking a few green onions along and been using them in salads but here we harvested the remainder of the onion sets.

Here they are after being cleaned up and ready to bag. These are the best, fresh, tasty onions. Note the one tiny carrot in the front!!! We pulled one just to see how close they were to being ready.....not yet!

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Honey Harvest time is getting near.

Getting the 39 Ball & Kerr canning jars washed that our dear friend, Don, found for me at a garage sale for only $5. What a deal that was. Thank you Don for always being on the look-out for me.

The rest of those 39 jars!!! We have bought new caps & rings at 12 for $3.22. That makes our cost $.40 a jar versus $.73. Savings of 45%!!!

Mickey - in the process of building 2 more Supers. The Super is what you put on top of the hive for the bees to store honey in that can be harvested. He had to build these two news ones to replace the full ones he will be removing that are loaded with that wonderful, pure honey. Yum!!! Stay turned for this years first harvesting soon.

Have a great day......I'm off to bake Banana/pineapple Bread. I'll post about that later :o)

MY THREE - Pay if Forward

Here are the three that have joined up to Pay if Forward with me: Sunny of Sunny's Place - Leigh Ann , aka Momma Roar, of Living to Learn and Learning to Live - and Kathy of A Field Lily.

THANK YOU and I'll be in touch!

PAY IT BACK

"You don't pay love back; you pay it forward."

The expression "pay it forward" is used to describe the concept of asking that a good turn be repaid by having it done to others instead.

I am taking part in a Pay it Forwards with Pea at Pea's Corner

So, I need a total of 3 people to say they will join as well. I have never participated before but am excited to be doing so this year. I look forward to the wonderful feeling it will give to Pay It Forward!!

Here's how it works

If you want to join in the fun, just leave a comment saying you'd like to be included. The first three people to do so will receive a gift from me sometime during the next year. In turn, they will post a Pay It Forward post on their blog and send a gift to three people who agree to participate. You never know when the gift will arrive in the mail. It could be next week or next June. It truly is a lot of fun trying to find out what people like so you can send an appropriate Pay It Forward gift. It can be bought or handmade and doesn't need to be expensive at all.

Please join me!!!

FATHER'S DAY

Another holiday finds this family, as always, celebrating by eating!!

Suzette & Dave hosted us with a 7 pm cook out of hamburgers which Dave cooked on the grill. Suzette and Dave provided all the "fixings", 2 kinds of chips, Salsas & a sour cream chip dip. Suzette's delicious baked beans & potato salad. We provided deviled eggs and fresh garden lettuce (plus we brought 4 big bags of various type lettuces from Mickey's garden for everyone to take a large bag full home.) Jacque brought sliced cantaloupe and watermelon and Suzette also made a delicious pound cake with icing. Pops of several kinds and tea to drink.

Marc is showing Mickey & Jacque pictures, on his phone, from his & the kids 9 day vacation, which they had just returned from. They went to Texarkana (2 days) to visit the kids maternal great-grandmother and then Dallas area where they visited Marc's childhood friend, Dave and his family, and did Six Flags and The Iron Stone lodge. They had a fun and relaxing time. Aric part of the fun.

Dave is on the phone in the mud room talking to Benny who had left for Wednesday for a 6 week vacation trip to Alaska to pan and mind for gold. He had done the same 2 years ago. Aric wanted to fix his Dad's hamburger and had just handed the plate to him. In the background Deann, Aric & Mickey.


Everyone loading up their plates. In front Dave, Marc, Aric & Suzette, behind Jacque & Oksana.

Mickey opening one of his 3 very touching cards extolling the wonderful father he had been......and is!!! Oksana watching on.

After Mickey had opened his cards and gifts he spoke to the kids. He told them how much he loved them, how honored he was to be their Father and how proud he was of each one of them. Then he asked for forgiveness for being a little too strict when they were growing up and sometimes now finishing something he had started. He was weeping when he was through and so were all of us. It was a very touching moment in time and one I'm sure the kids, and grandkids, will always remember.

Mickey showing the T-shirt from Jacque which reads: "God is my Victory Lane - Get in gear with Christ". She also gave him Mountain Forest shave gel. Suzette and Dave got him Mountain Frost cologne and Davidoff Cool Water frozen fragrance. Marc & the kids gave him a gift certificate to Low*es.

The group family picture.

Oksana, Mickey, Aric & Jacque

Susan

Marc, Suzette & Dave

Missing: first born son, David, in California, granddaughter, Jessica, having to work as usual and Benny in Alaska.

David celebrated his birthday on June 22nd, the day after Father's Day.

Happy 45th DAVID!!!!

Mickey & I are blessed to have a wonderful, caring, close, loving family.

We cherish each and every one of them.

After eating and gift opening Dave gave Oksana a ride on his fairly new Harley. Aric wanted no part of riding a motorcycles!

Two of my blog friends, Kathy of A Field Lily, and Kristie who has a private blog, recently showed their neat, clean, orderly linen closets. Isn't it wonderful how blogs can even motivate us!!!! Well, their blogs did and I decided I had to try and get my food stash collection points in some better order.

I do not have a real pantry so I have resorted to storing my items in 4 different places in our house!!! Not the best, but the only solution.

Here are my 4 locations - before and after.



This was the bottom of the closet in our office. I know, it's a mess.

Here is this closet now. Yeah, all food stuff gone. It's still a mess and that is Mickey's meal worms he raises to feed his blue birds in the blue topped tub. One location completely gone and only 3 left. Double Yeah!!!

Two views of the one large shelf in a large linen closet we have. The trouble here had been that a large part of this shelf was taken up with two large covered cake carriers. You can only see the round one in front, but there is another square one behind that. These are wonderful items to have when you need them, but they take up a LOT of room and are not used that often.

Here is a partial view of the linen shelf. The cake carriers have been moved to the garage storage area. The canned vegetables on the right go for 2 more rows that you cannot see in this photo.

This is a shelf in a bookcase in our guest room that I use for canned tomato's of various kinds and 4 canned meats.

The area to the right was not changed at all. On the area to the left I moved some of the items back so I could add the large can of enchiladia sauce and the large jar of chunky salsa which had been stuck in with the other vegtables.

This is the bottom of my linen closet where I store paper goods and coffee and sugar.

Here is the re-arranged linen closet where I have added the two tall containers of instand oatmeal & whole oats.

So even though I still have "stuff" stored here and there, it is neater and the places have been reduced from 4 to 3. Thanks Kathy & Kristie!!!