Let the Season Begin

.... Gun season that is.


Today was the first day of deer gun season here. Our resident hunters, Tim and family friend Terry, each got a deer early in archery season, but then, in what has become a pattern over the past few years, the deer have been scarce. Hopefully, they will each get another in gun season.

Hunting is a big deal here. Not just in the 100 Acre Wood, but in the state. In the area of Ohio we are from a fair number of people hunt. I would have called it a fairly normal activity. In fact, the school that I did my student teaching in made the first day of gun season a day off school. But hunting there is not nearly the big deal that hunting is in this state.

I wouldn't say everyone hunts here, but I bet everyone has a good friend or family member that does. Camo, gun racks, and four wheelers in the back of pick ups are frequent and normal sites. Sunday, our local news station had a fairly long segment on the six o'clock news about how to site in your gun. The local paper regularly has hunting articles, and Sunday's edition featured about a 3/4 page article about the start of the season. It confirmed to me that deer season is a big deal here. (Read the full article: Deer Season Starts)

It brings $233 million into the state economy.

Last year during the two week buck season 67, 213 bucks were tagged.
Over 67,000 bucks in just two weeks in a state that is only a little over 24,000 square miles. That is crazy to me.

Deer season is a big deal to me too. It fills my freezer, and is our "beef" for the year. Cooking venison is different than beef though. Gail asked me for some deer recipes. I referred her to a post I wrote on another blog, Venison Roast. The main thing to remember is that deer has less fat than beef, and will dry out easier. Steaks are best cooked medium at the most. When Tim butchers he cuts the tenderloin into thick steaks which we wrap in bacon and grill medium rare. Those are the best!

Roasts need to be cooked with liquid. Since writing the post above, I have had better success with cooking roasts in the crockpot. They turn our very tender when put in the crockpot with broth or other liquids.

After the roasts are cut from the legs, we (mostly my mom) makes broth and stew meat by boiling what is left. The stew meat is canned. It is so convenient and delicious to use with noodles or rice for a quick dinner.

Not exactly recipes, but ideas I hope. Enjoy the season, and your venison.

Cooking Rabbit

Living here in the woods, and becoming more self sufficient has involved cooking a lot of new to us foods. Luckily, we are pretty adventurous and enjoy trying new things. Our gardens have consisted mostly of your standard vegetables. New vegetables have come in the wild foods that we eat. The food group where we've had the most learning to do is the meats.

We are learning to cook venison, rabbit, lamb, and soon will be learning about goat. I'm happy to say that the only meat I buy now is sausage and bacon, and we should have our own hog in the freezer late this winter. It is a good feeling.

Rabbits are wonderful meat sources. They can produce a lot of meat year round. They are easy to raise, and would be ideal for an urban homesteader. The meat is lean and mild. In fact, rabbit meat is extremely healthy. It is lower in fat and cholesterol than chicken. See rabbit meat nutritional facts.

Ideal market weight for rabbits I'm told is between 3-5 pounds. We usually let ours get bigger than that, up to 10 pounds, before butchering. In young rabbits, the meat is still tender and it is enough for a meal for us when they are larger.

Yes, it really does taste like chicken. In fact, I'm willing to bet if you served deboned rabbit to anyone they'd never suspect that it wasn't chicken they were eating. Though they taste like chicken, they obviously aren't shaped anything like a chicken. Learning how to cut the meat has been the hardest part. The best meat is in two long strips along the back. The belly meat is tough, but can be used in soups and stews. The front legs are similar to a large chicken wing while the back legs are comparable to a chicken thigh. I mostly cook the rabbit whole in a crockpot and debone to use. Sometimes, like for the grill, it needs to be cut into pieces. Then, we cut the legs off and cut the back into two or three pieces, depending on the size of the rabbit.

So how to cook it? I think that I've used rabbit in just about everything I used to make chicken with. Like chicken, it works well with a variety of spices and herbs, and can be cooked lots of different ways. As I mentioned above I mostly will cook it in the crockpot. The first meal I will serve it deboned and then use any leftovers to make soup, casseroles or other meals. One of the best things we've tried with rabbit recently is BBQ. The rabbit was cooked in the crockpot, deboned and then reheated with homemade BBQ sauce, roughly based on this Western North Carolina Vinegar Barbecue sauce. Rabbit is also excellent grilled.

Cooking new meats has been interesting. There have been challenges, but learning to use rabbit has been as easy as substituting rabbit for chicken in a recipe.

Oh she is a smart one

Awww isn't she cute and sweet?

Don't be fooled. Although she is terribly cute, and can be incredibly sweet, behind that veneer the wheels are turning.

Vivian has a bad habit of asking for something to eat, eating a bite or two and saying she is all done. Then ten minutes later she is asking for something different to eat. It drives me nuts.

I'd rather let food go to waste (Well not exactly to waste since we feed the scraps to the animals, but that is expensive feed!) than to force the kids to eat when they aren't hungry. One thing I've done is to give her very small portions, but even then she doesn't finish it. The other, and much more effective approach has been to save her food. then when she asks again for something to eat, I pull out the food she did not finish. This does not meet with her approval most times. We've been battling this way for sometime now.

This morning she decided she was going to try to out smart me. She ate maybe two bites of her cereal. When I picked up the table, I set her bowl on the counter. It wasn't there long. Yes, the cereal was very soggy, but it isn't like the milk had turned or anything. Soggy cereal is gross I know, but we are trying to break a habit here. I went out to let the chickens out. When I returned, Vivian was dumping her cereal into the sink.

She had that "busted" look on her face for a brief minute. Then she smiled sweetly, and said, "I hungry." Oh yes, she knew exactly what she was doing. I simply responded, "Then you shouldn't have dumped your cereal." She had no argument, but simply walked away.

Cute? Yes she is. Sweet? Most certainly. But don't forget smart and tricky too!

More Annoying than a Political Ad

I do not enjoy election season. I do not enjoy politics. Although I respect the foundations our government rests on, in my opinion the whole government has just gotten too large, too complicated, and the elected officials, along with many of the people who put them there, too self serving and short sighted to ever make any real change. I still try to stay somewhat informed. I vote, but let's just say I'm slightly disenchanted with the whole process. 

Frankly, this election season I was more ambivalent than ever. Neither of the gentlemen running for the top seat of our nation inspired me in the least. Neither promising to lead down a road that I wish to follow. Then consider that I live in an area which is bombarded with political ads from three states. Can you understand that when the election is over, I just want it to be over? I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm done with it. 

To the best of my recollection this is the first even remotely political post that I've ever posted on any of the blogs I write. Although I am so ready to be done with all things to do with the 2008 election, even though I've never expressed support for Obama or McCain on my blogs, Obama supports feel the comment sections of my blogs are a place to celebrate the Obama victory. And one to insult the people of West Virginia for not voting for Obama.  

Most of you know that I'm not one to get riled up easily, but these commenters really tick me off. I am fully willing to attribute part of this irritation to hormones, to the TV experience my family had last night, to the field trip I drove an hour for today that was not what I was expecting, or to the inconsiderate person on a chat group who unjustly accused a friend of being biased and then got mad when another friend defended her. Yes, basically right now I'm irritated with people in general. I'm tired of inconsiderate, self serving people, and commenters who use my blog to celebrate an event that I've not discussed at all, fall into that category. 

The election is over. Obama and the Democrats won. I am not celebrating. I would not be celebrating had it gone the other way either. So, to those who are celebrating, keep it to yourself, and let's move on. 

Election Day in the Woods

We belong to a co-op that meets every other Tuesday. My children have made a lot of great friends and look forward to our meetings. This year our meeting happened to fall on election day. Because the building we meet in is a polling place, we thought we might have to cancel co-op for the week. Instead we decided to have co-op in the woods.

Yesterday we had round about 50 people here. (I never did get a count.) We had beautiful weather and lots of fun. Activities included a scavenger hunt, petting the animals, sack races, egg tosses, and eating apples tied to a string. (Or off the string as the case may be.) We also had hayrides and a campfire with s'mores. Everyone brought food to share and we feasted after all the activities. It was a wonderful day. Here are a few pictures:

Nolan Strikes Again

I guess he thought my plant needed pruning. 

Wordless Wednesday

The Beauty of Homeschooling

I know homeschooling isn't for everyone, and that is ok. There are so many things that I love about homeschooling. It is hard to imagine not homeschooling. Well, there are days I do imagine it, but those mostly come on the grocery days where kids are running down the aisle, crying, begging, or fighting. On those days, it is oh so easy to imagine them being in school, and me shopping with just one child instead of four, and someday shopping all alone. Oh yes, that would be a beautiful thing . . .  Wait a minute this post was supposed to be about the beauty of homeschooling, not my fantasies of peaceful grocery shopping. 

As I was saying, the last few weeks I've really appreciated some of the advantages of homeschooling. This appreciation has not come at the shining success of our educational pursuits. It has been earned through the frustrations and trials of learning addition and subtraction.    

Lydia quickly caught on to the concept of addition and subtraction, and she was great figuring out problems, as long as she could use manipulatives. Her math book quickly moved on to double digit problems and using manipulatives for every one of those quickly became cumbersome. Soon she was frustrated and shut down. She wasn't even able to complete problems she easily figured the day before. I was getting frustrated. We were getting nowhere. 

This is where the individual attention that comes with homeschooling is such a blessing. Instead of her falling behind while the class moved on, we are able to slow it down and work at her pace. She has been playing a lot of math baseball in an effort to sharpen her skills.   We also pulled out a workbook that we didn't use last year. The pages are very simple, and she flies right through them. It all serves to strengthen the foundation and make math a less overwhelming subject to her. 

She still needs manipulatives a lot more than I'd like, but she is getting quicker and gaining confidence. So much confidence in fact, she is teaching addition and subtraction to her four year old brother. For several days now, after her lessons are done, I've found her sitting with Nolan and a beginning addition workbook page. It is simply adorable. 

Our math curriculum is set aside for now. There is no pressure to get through the text or to keep up with the class. Lydia is learning addition and subtraction at her own pace. Right now that pace requires a lot of repetition and patience. The beauty of homeschooling is the flexibility to provide her with that. 

They are very literal at that age....

A few weeks ago, Papaw had Nolan (4) and Vivian (2) with him to do chores up at the barn. They all had an unpleasant surprise when they got there. One of the horses was dead. 

Biscuit had recently been weaned from Sophie, and Sophie was being kept in the barn during the process. For those of you who don't know, Sophie was a wild thing. She was easily spooked, not broken, and a big bully in the pasture. Papaw had hoped to be able to work with and train her, but the time to do so was never there.

Sophie was not happy to be in the barn to say the least. She refused food and water for the first few days there. Though she did start to eat and drink, she never was content in the barn. She pushed and pushed at the gate, and apparently some of the block were not solid. She eventually pushed the block out which caused the upper support to fall on her head, killing her. This is what they found when they went to feed the animals that day.

Sophie was hardly a pet. In fact, the kids were scared of her. They were not upset that she had died. Papaw buried her in a big hole on a hill by our driveway.

The other day Nolan was with Mamaw and Papaw. Mamaw and Papaw were talking about the animals and the subject turned to Sophie. One of them commented, "I still can't believe we lost Sophie." To which Nolan immediately replied, "We didn't lose her. She is in that hole by the driveway."

Little Piggies

Wordless Wednesday

Same Battle, Different Child

On this journey called parenting, one of the things that has amazed me the most is how different every child is.  The fact that two children coming from the same gene pool, raised by the same parents can act and react so differently boggles the mind. 

Our four are no exception. They all have very unique personalities and traits. It is good. It keeps things very interesting around here. 

Though they are all individuals, there also are a few common traits that can be seen in them. Out of the four, the two that are most alike are Nolan and Vivian. The both are independent and strong willed. They both know how to lay on the charm. It is dangerous, I tell you. Adding to it, they both are very active. It is exhausting, I tell you. 

Long time readers have read many a story about the adventures of Nolan. In the last year or so, he really has mellowed out. Not that his personality has changed, he is till plenty ornery, but he seems to have learned to respect the boundaries a little better. Just in time for his little sister to come behind him and push me to my limits again. 

Oh she is sweet, and she is cute, and she knows exactly how to use it. She is full of personality. She loves to run the show. She is not afraid to tell anyone what she wants or thinks. One of her latest insistence's is that she wear her pink cowboy boots everywhere we go. 

These boots were in a bag of items given to us by a neighbor. They are cute, but don't exactly match everything. Viv doesn't care. She wants to where them everywhere. I had to draw the line when she wanted to wear them with turquoise shorts. 

Oh, and do those boots get attention! Vivian basks in it. If we are out somewhere, and someone notices the boots (as if you could miss them) she smiles sweetly, makes sure they have a good view of her boots, and says, "My pink cow boots." She is a charmer! 

Last night the above picture is what I found in my bedroom. How could you be angry with that face? Well I was, for a moment anyhow, until I thought, "What a great picture for the blog."

It isn't just boots, or getting into things she knows she shouldn't. She is pretty insistent on having everything her way all the time. She does not take no for an answer, and will dig in her heels at every turn. 

So, here we go again. I'm gearing up for the battle, reviewing what I wrote a year and a half ago, Dealing with a Strong Willed Child,  when it was Nolan I was battling, and praying that what worked with Nolan works with Vivian too. After all, they are a lot alike, but also very unique. 

Listen up guys

The pastor played this at church on Sunday. Men, this could save your marriage!

Tearin' Down the Barn part two

Yesterday was Tim's day off work. So we headed to work on tearing down the barn. Tim and I drove separately. By the time I got there he had all the siding off except one wall. That final wall was covered in tin that did not want to come off. After removing the floor boards and some of the other structure, Papaw and Tim sledged the wall off in one piece.






As you can see, by the time we were down there was not much left. Most of what is left in this picture is unusable. We do have to go back to get the last trailer load of wood, but the tear down is done.

My Favorite Weedeater

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Demolition

Saturday morning a notice went out on Freecycle offering the wood, metal roofing, and loose hay from an old barn that was to be torn down. With several outbuildings on the to do list, we were soon headed across the river to a nearby town with my parents, two vehicles and two trailers to haul stuff in.

There was one other taker on the offer who arrived before we did. She wanted to build a small garden shed, so we worked out what she needed to salvage, and the rest was ours for the taking. First we went through the contents of the building. Mom found a decent porch swing and some other things. I found some old jars, including half gallon canning jars. There also was a whole box of unused jelly jars!

Next was the loose hay in the loft. What a messy, stinky job! Papaw would rake the hay down and Tim would shove it in the end of the cattle rack while Mamaw and I tried to stuff it in as much as we could. Eventually we gave up and let Papaw and Tim handle it.

The hay is old. There probably isn't much nutrition left in it, but it will make great bedding or filler. They baled it yesterday and it made 20 bales. They went back and got the rest, which filled the cattle rack again. The second trip yielded 26 bales.

Next the men (and my little man) headed to the roof to remove the metal sheets. They ripped off and Mamaw and I stacked them in the trailer. The other people were there also working on taking the siding boards off the one wall.

After the roofing was all off, the guys knocked out all the boards that the roof was attached too. Again Mamaw and I stacked. Next came the notched rafters. Four were given to the other people for their building and the rest were loaded on top of the roofing in the trailer.

The younger kids helped some and played in the yard. There was also a box of books leftover from a yard sale. Lydia spent a lot of time reading those herself, and reading to Nolan and Vivian.

We worked about six hours, and were just about at our quitting point when the owner offered to buy us dinner. Gratefully we accepted and he went to town and brought back pizza and pop. While he was gone we cleaned up the area a bit, and he returned to find us all sprawled out in the grass exhausted. This picture was taken when we were almost to calling it a day.

The process seems very simple as I type about it. In reality, it was a lot of hard exhausting work. We all are still dragging from the hours of physical labor put in that day. There still is a lot of barn to tear down yet, but all those materials will be put to use in new buildings here. The hard work will save a ton of money. Now to find another day and the energy to go do it again!

When you can't play...read!

Kellen bought a Nintendo 64 game system (our first) about a year ago, and I was concerned about the battle it would become with Kellen. It has been no battle with Kellen, but Nolan well it is a different story. 

The kid is infatuated with Nintendo. He doesn't care if he is playing. He is just as happy to watch Kellen play. When they figure out a new trick or how to get to the next Zelda level, Nolan wants to call Tim at work to tell him about it. He tries to tell me about it, but has figured out I am basically clueless. Our donkeys are already named after Mario characters, Luigi and Daisy, and now Nolan wants to name our new cat Toon Link. 

Since school is in and the new TV rules are in place, the Nintendo does not even come on most days. That hasn't stopped Nolan though. He may not be able to play the games, or even watch Kellen play the games, but he can read about the games. 

His new thing is to get the booklets that come with the games out to read. Well, not really read, but to look through. He will spend a good hour pouring through the little booklet. He will show Kellen the pictures and  give his interpretation of what those pictures mean. He gets so excited. (Kellen in typical big brother fashion is not impressed.)

I don't know whether to be happy he is looking at a book (of sorts) for so long or be frustrated that I can't get his mind off Nintendo!

Boys will be boys

The boys have found a new form of entertainment. This kept them busy for hours yesterday.

T.V. Time Rules

Back to school is an adjust whether your children go to school or you homeschool. This fall we've fallen back into the book routine fairly smoothly. What has been a little rocky is TV time.

We don't watch a lot of TV, even in the summer, but I am a little more generous with TV time in the summer heat than I am during the school year. When we started back to the books Kellen (10) and Lydia (6) fell easily into the routine of no TV until school is done and we've eaten lunch. Nolan (4) was not so compliant.

Every morning the first thing he would ask me was to play Nintendo. When that answer was no he would ask to watch TV. When that answer was no he would ask to watch a movie. When that answer was no he would give up, for about an hour, and then we would go through the whole process again. I thought I was going to lose my mind! (or throttle the kid) Finally after a few weeks he got it through his head that the darned TV was not coming on for any purpose until after lunch. Then began the next phase of the battle.

Those of you who know my bright determined child may guess at what happened next. He would scarf down lunch, declare, "I am done," and ask to play Nintendo. I'd set the timer and let him play. Immediately after his time was up he'd ask for a snack. UGH! A few days of making him wait for a snack fixed that problem. He decided he better slow down and eat a better lunch. But still our TV time rules were not working.

Even after Nolan finally got in the routine, the TV was driving me crazy. The problem is there are four kids. Each of them want their TV time, and of course all the others want to watch while someone else is getting their time. So the TV was on basically all afternoon, and I was constantly hearing bickering about whose turn it was to pick. I tried getting them to agree on something, but with two boys and two girls ranging from 2 to 10 it can be a little difficult to find something everyone likes. Nothing was working for me.

Then I happened across something in a book I was reading that made a light go off. Why does each kid get to pick something each day? Why not give each kid a day that is theirs? Aha!

So we started the new TV rules. We rotate days for who gets to pick what is on for the allotted time for TV. I didn't assign specific days since we aren't always home on the same days and weekends don't count.

This is our second week for it, and it is working like a charm. The kids keep track of whose day it is, and I've yet to hear any arguing or complaining about what the person picks. They know how much time they have and plan accordingly to watch the shows or play the games that they really want to.

Last year TV time during the school year wasn't a problem. This year it has been an adjustment. I guess it is growing pains that come with the kids getting older. Rotating the days each child gets to pick what to watch has saved a lot of bickering, and cut back on the amount of time the TV is on. It is working for me!

Works for Me Wednesday: find more ideas and tips.
Photo credit: P. Costa

Telling it like it is (photo added)

The other day Lydia spent a good portion of the day over at Mamaw's house. When she came home I waste teasing her about being gone so long, and asked her why she liked Mamaw's house better than home. She didn't miss a beat, and informed me, "Because Mamaw's house is clean." Ouch!

Yesterday I was out feeding the pigs and Vivian was standing in the driveway near me. She had found the spray end of a backpack water toy that we have. She was using it as a microphone and singing her little heart out. I couldn't exactly make out the words, but she was sure into her singing. She was swaying and dancing to her own music. I smiled at her and asked if she were singing me a song. She gave me a look that pretty much implied that I was out of my mind. Then she tells me, "No, sing piggies." Now I know where I rank.


*****
This morning Vivian decided to serenade the pigs again. I had to add a picture!

On the job training, again.

Our ram is a big old boy. He is tough, and has a tendency to be a bully. He isn't exactly mean, but he will push you around. He has sent Papaw, Tim and I all flying a time or two. His favorite target once was Billy Bob, the goat. Billy was pretty young when we got him and the ram was the boss.

We separated them, and during that time Billy grew up. He still isn't as big as the ram, but he has a large set of horns that more than compensate for the body size difference. The last time they got together, while we were moving some animals to a different pasture, Billy got the better of the ram. He gave him a couple of good scrapes and small punctures. We put bag balm on the sores, and other than the ram being a bit more humble for a few days, he was just fine.

The ram's latest tangle we suspect was with a deer about a week ago. He had two puncture wounds, one on his front leg and the other about mid abdomen. We covered them with bag balm and didn't think anything else about it.

About mid week I noticed he wasn't acting quite himself. He stayed in the barn a lot, and wasn't waiting at the gate to plow me over at feeding time. It was very hot this week, and he has behaved similarly in the heat before. I didn't think much of it, and was happy to not have to fight him to feed the sheep.

Then yesterday he came out for feed while I was still there. I noticed that the wound on his abdomen looked black and not healed, and he stunk. Not your normal sheep stink, but a rotten stink. I tried to look at the wound. It wasn't easy to hold him and look at it, so I decided to wait until Tim was home to help, but I supected fly strike.

I knew sheep were susceptible to fly strike. I had read a bit about it when we were deciding about docking the lambs tails. The problem is that I had only read about it in conjunction with tails and flies laying eggs in manure that could accumulate on the fleece. I never even thought about it being a problem elsewhere.

Looking back it seems silly that I wouldn't see that there is a connection. Blow flies like sheep. An open wound is a warm moist place perfect for laying their eggs. Well, duh! But that seems to be how we learn things around here, a little at a time, putting bits and pieces of knowledge together. On the job training you could say. I know this is part of the learning curve with animals, but every time something happens I feel so bad.

If you're squeamish you may want to skip ahead to "SAFE NOW."

When Tim got home we went out to look at the ram. The wound looked to be the size of a quarter, so we didn't expect cleaning him up would take long. Tim pulled back on the wound, which in fact was nothing but black rotted flesh, to expose it and found it full of maggots. I couldn't look, but the smell was awful.

He started scraping them out and just kept finding that the wound and the maggots went deeper and longer along the rams abdomen. Tim trimmed back fleece and dead skin, scraped out maggots and poured on peroxide or alcohol for about an hour and half while I tried to keep the ram still. We were all exhausted by the time we were done.

SAFE NOW

The ram is left with a gaping wound about four inches long. We debated stitching him and tried to find information on the internet, but with no luck. Most of what I found addressed pets, (This can affect almost any animal, but sheep are the host of choice for the fly.) or for commercial farming, not for homesteaders.

We think we got all of the problem out, but are opting to keep the wound open and clean it out several times a day with antiseptic just be safe. The ram was given a dose of penicillin and we removed him from the pasture and barn. We tied him out and are moving him around the yard to keep a closer eye on him and to give him a cleaner place to lie down. We also gave him a good spraying of fly spray to try to keep the flies away.

He seems perfectly happy and is eating, and hopefully headed for a full recovery. From other accounts I read about in severe cases (I can't imagine what that would look like.) the animal is listless and lethargic. It will kill them and it is best to put them down. This was bad enough. I am glad to have caught when we did, though I wish I had paid closer attention earlier.

Lessons learned from this on the job training session:

1. Fly strike can happen at any weak point on the sheep.
2. Fly strike can affect other animals.
3. I need to pay more attention when an animal has a wound or is not quite acting like their normal self.

These are hard lessons to learn.

Save the Bees

Yesterday we went on a field trip to Stiltner's Apiary. The kids enjoyed it, especially the taste testing. I found it fascinating. Mr. Stiltner has raised bees for a long time, and works for the State Agriculture Department. He knows his stuff.

He walked us through part of his bees. He keeps millions (literally) of bees. He explained some cross breeding projects he is currently working on, and showed us the process used to get the honey. All along the way giving lots of interesting tidbits and facts about bees. I learned a lot.

The Africanization of bees.
I didn't even know there was such a thing, or that it was a problem. Basically African bees are very aggressive toward people and other bees. They also are genetically dominate. His bees are very gentle, and his cross breeding project is an attempt to get a hardy, productive and gentle bee suited for West Virginia. He suggested that those who want to start with bees do not order queens from Florida or California because they are likely to be Africanized there.

The demise of the bees.
He recommended a National Geographic production about bees. Another mom at the field trip said that PBS also recently showed it. I don't know the exact title.

You may have heard about the great numbers of bees that are dying for reasons scientists can't explain. According to the film, if the current loss rate continues there will be no honey bees by 2035. If you've seen the animated Bee Movie, you know what happens when the honey bees stop working, plants stop producing our food.

Health Benefits of Honey
I know that honey is supposed to be a healthier sweetener, but am not very educated on the subject. A couple of things he mentioned on the field trip caught my interest.

Honey can help those with allergies, but not any honey will do. You need to eat honey that was made locally or at least in a place with similar vegetation. Honey produced far from you was made with pollens that you don't encounter, and therefore won't help your allergies. Makes sense doesn't it?

According to Mr. Stiltner honey that is mass produced has little more health benefit than sugar. The processing it goes through kills all the good stuff. Ever microwaved your honey after it crystallized? That is a no no too. It kills the good stuff. Warm it up with hot water or in a sunny window.

The glue like substance the bees use in the hive is like penicillin. In fact, it is nicknamed Russian penicillin and has been traditionally used to treat illness.


Papaw has mentioned getting bees several times. While I've always thought it was a good idea, this field trip has piqued my interest. Time to do some more research and move bees up on the want list. The other project that has been mentioned latley is maple syrup. Mmmm.... it is going to be sweet around here!