The Bees - Hive Collapse

Hive Collapse

I went out to check the hive yesterday before the storm.   My husband had said that there wasn't any activity that he could see from the outside on a warm day last week.  I opened the viewing window and used a flashlight.  We have lost all our bees.  There don't seem to be any dead bees: just an empty hive.  It is spotlessly tidy and there is still honey.  We are very sad.  It's hard to explain an emotional tie to insects, if you have never kept bees.  But they are like part of the family, in a strange way. 

We will have to figure out what happened before we get new bees.  I'm afraid that the swarm we brought in from Eldorado Canyon last summer brought some kind of contagion.  Our neighbors sprayed for weeds, but not for insects, as far as I know.  If there is a contagion, we will have to burn the hives and start over.  I'm not exactly sure what the next step is.  We have wheat fields all around us and I suppose those fields probably use one of those Monsanto products that kills everything.  And GMO seed.  If anyone out there has a suggestion, I'm open.

The front door to the hive was all properly winterized by the bees as usual.  It is a puzzle.

The Buildings - The Sauna's First Firing

The Sauna's First Firing

My husband fired up the sauna this past weekend for the first time.  The benches are not in yet, so we didn't actually try to use it.  It got very hot indeed.  So hot that the first pane of glass in the window cracked.  There are three.  He went online and ordered a thermometer, a hydrometer, a pan and ladle for water, and some eucalyptus oil.  We have a cast iron dutch oven that we will use to hold the rocks on top of the wood stove.

And we need to get tempered glass for the inside layer of window glass, I guess.

Not long now ...

The Food - Easy Pasta and Shellfish

Easy Pasta and Shellfish

Here's another really easy recipe for those times when you don't have time or energy for somethiing more complicated - but you do need comforting, healing food.

Ingredients:
shellfish - shrimp, mussels, scallops, whatever you love
olive oil
onion, scallions, leeks and/or garlic
mushrooms (optional)
fennel, spinach, chard or mustard greens

spagetti

Last night we made this with shrimp, leeks, and fennel.   It was light, simpole and delicious.

Here's how you do it.

Have the pasta ready.

Put about a 1/2 ich of oil in a  large skillet and turn on medium heat.  Add one leek, sliced thin and as it starts to wilt, add the fennel, also sliced thin.  Just as they begin to carmelize, add the shelled, veined shrimp and toss.  Let cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the shrimp are pink and opaque.  Salt to taste. We had it on whole wheat spagetti and it was delicious.

This is also great with onions and mushrooms instead of leeks and fennel and any old shellfish thrown in at the end and sometimes we have it with rather a lot of garlic added at the end as well.  If you are doing greens that only need to wilt, they go in after the shellfish at the very end as well.  And some people like to put grated cheese on it.  But the leeks and fennel were so delicate, we didn't add any garlic or cheese to it this time. 

The food - Easy Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

Easy Slow cooker Chicken Cacciatore

So ... we have been a little under-the-weather and low on energy at our house.  Hense the dirth of blog posts. But I did feel like it was worth passing on this recipe because it is so easy and it is delicious and fillng and real comfort food when you aren't feeling well.  I made it  last Thursday when I was at work all day and it was ready when we got home and had filled th house with deicious smells. 

Ingredients:
1 stewing chicken (it can still be frozen)
1 jar of prepared spagetti sauce (I have used many different kinds.  They all work.)
1 jar of pitted black olives

Polenta

Vegetable

Place the frozen (or thawed) chicken in the slow cooker and pour over the spagetti sauce.  Drain the liquid from the olives into the spagetti sauce jar, swish it around, and pour around the chicken.  Sprinkle the olives over and around the chicken. Turn on the slow cooker for the amount of time you need.  It will cook on high in 4 hours or on low in 10, or anything in between and be delicious.  Before serving prepare the polena and a vegetable of your chouce. 
After the first meal, if there are leftovers, bone the chicken and return the meat to the sauce and store in the refrigerator or freezer until you want to reheat. 

Part of the beauty of this is the leftovers.  The polenta and chicken-plus-sauce can be heated by the plate in the microwave and the polenta makes the most beautiful fried grits for breakfast with butter and maple syrup. 

The Riding/Training - Elvis, Gus and Prima Worked

Elvis, Gus, and Prima Worked

The backache was gone, so I decided to try working horses today.  I lunged them all instead of riding though, giving my back one more day. 

Elvis was first.  He was totally sound going to the right and only a little off going to the left.  So he is improving.  He was a little naughty because I didn't corral the other horses and when they ran around and acted silly, he tried to, too.  It was a teaching moment.  He got very sweaty, but much of it was emotional.   See below.

Gus was next.  He is so fit!  He barely turned a hair.  He was good and got lots of cookies.  I don't know... I have 3 horses that are being ridden.  They are on roughly the same regimen.  One is fit and the other two are .. well ... not fit.  I guess one is green and the other is fat ... but still.  There is a pretty dramatic difference!  (He's standing on a slope, by the way.)

 

 

And Prima was last.  She has really lost weight.  The circingle fit her without a girth extender.  And she didn't sweat so much or get so winded.  She is on the right path... and she is totally sound.

 



Fun day all around.  Hopeful to ride them all tomorrow. 

The Buildings - Sauna Progress

Sauna Progress

While I was languishing in a viral stupor over the weekend, my husband worked on the sauna.   I think he was trying to find an excuse for not breathing the same as that I was breathing - but I could be wrong.  He says that all that's left is to build the benches and install the rest of  the stove pipe - and we can fire it up!!  The exterior porch (which I didn't know about until last night) with its exterior shower will come later ...

This is the panelled changing room.

This is the panelling in the sauna proper.

And there is a view of Pike's Peak out the window.

The Food, The Buildings, The Riding/Training - A Lost January

A Lost January

Since my last post, I had planned and even started posts on riding and training, food, and Christmas decorations at the farm.  But then the flu bugs got me and the flu bugs' complications, and before I knew it, January was almost gone and none of the posts were completed.

Suffice it to say, it has been warm and dry, and cold and dry and frigid and dry and the wind has been blowing.  I rode Gus once in my neighbor's indoor arena before I got sick and hope to do it again if I ever get well enough and the weather turns bad again.  Right now it it sunny and still and in the fifties.  I can ride down there, only going a few dozen feet on the road, and it is so nice to get in out of the elements.  It is dusty, so I will have to water it, but no one is really using it right now, so I feel lucky that they are willing to share.

Last Saturday my husband and I were both healthy (we were between illnesses), the weather was super,  and we got Gus, Prima and Elvis ridden.  It was the first time since mid-December.  The horses were fresh, but amazingly well-behaved, considering.  By Sunday my husband was ill and by Wednesday I was too.  Hopefully this will be the last of it for this year.  I'm tired of it!

As for the food - we did some interesting things with the goose ...

and goose soup this year, but it seems past the season when anyone would be interested in that ... so I can write it down next year. 

And the decorations were fun, but again, too late to be of interest.  

 

I made a great and simple chicken stew out of one of the old hens and the last of  the potatoes, onions and carrots from the garden.  I think it is what saved us from the jaws of death when we were ill.  But I didn't have a recipe, I didn't take any pictures and I can't remember exactly what I did, so that is lost to the ages as well.

Onward into the New Year!