Rocking Chair Renovation

My grandparents have these old rocking chairs on their front porch.  I sat down on it a few weeks ago and got a paint splinter because they were so old and worn.

So I stole them off of my grandparents porch and took them home.  I intended for this to be a secret Mothers Day present for my grandma, but it ended up taking a bit longer.  She got a little mad when she thought someone stole her chairs.  So I re-assured her that they were in good hands.  My mother just happened to be out the weekend I worked on them so I had a little help from her.  We started out by sanding them down.

We tried to get as much of the old paint off as possible

 I used a palm sander that helped this process go by so much faster.

I took a dry brush and brushed off all of the sanded dust so that I could begin painting.  Here are the chairs with their 1st coat of paint on them

Here is the almost completed chair.  2 coats of paint was added and the old seat cushions were replaced with new cushions and cute outdoor fabric.  Before installing the seat cushions I sprayed several coats of Scotch Guard to protect them from water and sun damage. 

Here are the chairs all finished with the cute pillows my mom made that make a great accent to their porch. 

I love how they turned out.  Now that I'm an expert upholsterer, maybe I'll tackle some furniture in my house next.

Beekeeper All on My Own!

At the beginning of the year.  I decided I wanted to have bees of my own.  I had been a beekeeper at work for about a year and wanted the benefit of my own honey each year for my family and food storage.  So I finally convinced my grandparents to put a hive out in the corner of their property.  It is in a horse pasture by the secondary water pump.  My grandpa decided to build a fence around it so that the horses would not disturb the bees. 
I ordered my A-Z beekeeping kit from Havest Lane Honey where I found it to be the cheapest place around.  I actually got the Jail to start buying all their products because they were so cheap, and the owner is  retired cop, so he gives us an even bigger discount.  I'm not complaining.  Yes it is a good 1 hour and 20 minute drive one way, but was worth the savings from all the supplies I got.
My grandparents actually got me a full set of boxes for Christmas, so all I really needed was the bees, the suit and tools.  That all came in the kit I bought from Harvest Lane Honey, even the bees!

So on the 2nd Saturday of April, I set out on a journey to Tooele, UT to pic up my package of bees.  I drove 1.5 hours with a couple thousand bees in my car.

 They sure were pissed after that long bumpy car ride.  It was a cold and dreary day.  So I had a lot of bees not figure out where to go that ended up dying outside.  But they are fine and dandy now. 

 A couple weeks later, the sun finally decided to warm up Utah a little bit, and that made the bees extra happy!

Here is a cool shot with their pollen baskets full of bright orange/red pollen.  Love these little creatures. 

Garlic Scapes Who Knew?

Most people do not know that a hard neck garlic will produce a false flower.  Hard neck garlic actually has a much stronger flavor than most store bought garlic.  So if you like a strong garlic flavor like I do, try to find hard neck garlic, or better yet, grow it yourself!  The false flower of the hard neck garlic usually gets cut off and discarded.  But what one doesn't know is that it is full of a great garlic flavor and very tasty!  At my garden at work, we grow about 10 rows of garlic.  Now garlic is a very special plant.  You actually plant it in the middle of October, cover the soil with a little bit of straw and let it grow all the way till the following June, when it decides to produce a false flower.  This false flower looks like a little piggy tail.  You are suppose to wait until it curls twice before cutting it off, to then help the garlic bulb bulk up over the next couple of weeks.  Once those false flowers (or also known as a garlic scape) are cut off, they can be used for a number of things.  Most popular is Garlic Scape Pesto, mmm my favorite!  But it can be used basically any way you use garlic, but looks more like a chive. 
Here is what a garlic scape actually looks like growing:

 

 Pretty cool huh?

Well after the scape is cut, I make pesto out of it every year.  Here is the recipe I use for Garlic Scape Pesto:

1 lb of Garlic Scapes cut into bite size pieces

3/4 c freshly grated Parmesan

3/4 c freshly grated Asiago 

1/2 c pine nuts

1 c extra virgin Olive Oil

Here is the process.  You want to wash the scapes first before cutting.  

Cut the hard stem and the false flower off of the scape

 

 Cut into bite sized pieces

 Add Olive oil first in a blender or food processor and then all of the other ingredients and blend until it is in a paste consistency.

To make this last longer.  I spoon it into ice cube trays and freeze it and pull it out of the freezer when I want to use it.  It helps it to last almost an entire year that way.

My favorite dish with garlic scape pesto, is to add cream cheese to it and make a creamy pesto sauce over pasta! 

Let me know if you get a chance to try this.  You can usually find Garlic Scapes at your local farmers market this time of year.

Enjoy!!

Big 'ol Chicken Run

It has been a busy past couple months, but they have been good ones!  At the beginning of spring once the snow all melted, I decided I wanted to move the chicken coop into my fenced off garden area so that they had a little bit more room to roam.  My husband used his brain and muscles to get it lifted up and over the grow boxes.  As the years have gone by, my Box Elder tree has now grown to shade my garden most of the summer, so I cannot grow much of anything in shade.  So my garden became the chicken run.  It worked out great and my girls loved the extra room to roam and do their foraging for bugs.

My grandparents decided they wanted to buy little chicks for every great-grandchild.  She had 11 then,  so she bought 11 baby pullets and raised them for a couple months.

Now I live in a city where they are not allowed on any land less than a 1/2 acre.  And we of course only have maybe 1/4th, so basically its illegal.  But if you have been following my posts, I tried to change that ordinance and was denied.  The City Planner called me the day following the decision and told me that the Ordinance worker only goes out on a complaint basis.  So unless my neighbors complain, I shouldn't have any problems.  My neighbors love us, so hopefully nothing will happen.

Back to the baby chicks my grandma raised.  Well there was only 2 of my cousins that actually wanted the chicks.  One cousin wanted 4, I only wanted 2.  My little Carin Terrier ended up pulling one of the babies through the fence and that left me with only 1 little chick.  Out of the 11 chicks that was purchased, that left 6 extra chickens that no one wanted.  I already have 4 chickens, and I did not want to push my limit with a bunch of chickens.

My Aunt and Uncle acquired the 6 that no one wanted and added them to their flock.  Their chickens did not accept the babies and ended up killing 2 and 1 almost pecked to death, so they brought them to my house.  Now I have 9 chickens more than I am suppose to have.  So I used my cold frame building knowledge and built a little fenced in chicken run so that neighboring cats, and my dogs could not harm my chickens.  I basically used 3/4" PVC pipes, zip ties, a couple re-bar stakes, and deer netting. 

 Re-bar pounded in the ground on one side with the PVC slid over the top and then I just drilled a couple holes on the other end and zip tied the other piece to the fence.

 Netting added and zip tied on.  Just missing the last piece of PVC to complete it

 Completed.  I just used a piece of wood to hold down this end and there is a little hidden door in there to let me get in to collect the eggs and clean up. Turned out great I thought!

A few of my girls.  It was one hot day.  For some reason they love this dog water dish to drink out of!

I love raising chickens.  Lets just hope and pray no one complains about my girls!

Home Made Chap Stick

So this past year I decided I wanted to use the wax that I harvested off all of the extra capping wax from the honey frames last year.  I am a huge fan of Burts Bees Wax, so I wanted to try to make something similar.  I love the peppermint tingle from the original kind of chap stick, so I found a recipe that I thought would be the best and tweaked it to make it my own. 

Ingredients:

1.5 oz of beeswax (I used my kitchen scale to measure this out)
4 tsp of doTERRA Coconut oil
3 tsp of Sunflower Oil
0.5 oz of Lanolin
20 drops of Vitamin E oil
15 drops of doTERRA Rosemary essential oil
30 drops of doTERRA Peppermint essential oil

I bought all of the empty tubes, sunflower oil, and lanolin at Mountain Majestic Sage up in Logan, Ut.  They have everything you would ever need for soaps, lotions, chap sticks, lipstick, etc.
The Rosemary and Peppermint essential oil and Coconut Oil comes from doTERRA Essential Oils of which I highly suggest!  I am a consultant for them and love their oils.  They are certified pure oils and are not diluted like the oils purchased at Walmart, or even Health Food Stores.  doTERRA oils are very potent and if you are going to use a store bought oil, you may have to add more oil to it since it may not be as strong as doTERRA oils. 
The Vitamin E oil can be purchased typically at any grocery store's pharmacy section. 

The Process:

I melted all of the ingredients in a double boiler except the vitamin e oil and essential oils.  Melt everything down and just before pouring into the tubes mix in the vitamine e oil and essential oils. Once it is all mixed together I poured it into a pyrex glass measuring cup to fill the chap stick tubes.  You can fill to the top and then as it cools add a couple more drops to the top to make it mounded, instead of sunken and flat. If the mixture cools in the pyrex just microwave it on 50% for 30 second intervals till all melted.

It makes about 25 tubes of chap stick 

Let me know how yours turns out!

Farm Fresh Eggs

My girls are now in full production!  Last fall we got our first egg from one of the Golden Girls (Buff Orpingtons).  

Once winter set in, we added a supplemental light and a water heater to keep them going.  Chickens are like plants, they need at least 12-14 hours of light inorder to lay.  About a month ago, we started getting eggs from all 4 of our ladies.  We have 2 Buff's, 1 Bantum, and 1 Silkie.  I chose chickens that produce brown or light brown eggs, but the smaller the chicken the smaller the egg. So the eggs very is size for the most part. But it is still so fun to take Stella out there to collect the eggs from them each day.

Its pretty awesome how much work you dont really have to put into raising chickens.  I love the fact that they are able to proved us fresh eggs on a daily basis!  I love our little farm!

Cowgirl/Toy Story Party for Stella Rae

Our little Stella Rae turned 2 last November.  She has come to have an obsession with horses and Toy Story, so I decided to combine the two for her party.  We had the party at "Grandma Horsey's" house where we could have easier access to a pony for her special day.

I first started out with the invitations.  Here they are...

Here is what it looked like on the back of the invite ...

The day of the party was busy trying to get all of the food and decorations all set up.  We had the party all outside on the patio.  We had the fire going the whole time where everyone could roast hot dogs and s'mores.  We had the cute little pony "Addi" for about a hour taking all the kids around on a stroll.  She was a hit!  Everyone wanted to ride her 3 and 4 times.  Little Miss Stella wanted to hog her all to herself and ride her the whole time.  

I had Sams Club make up her cake.  I had them do a marble cake with whipped cream frosting (my favorite) with a cute Toy Story design on it.  I also had little Toy Story party favor bags, but other than that the rest of the party was mainly Cowgirl themed.  I had little hats I brought back with me from Virginia that I dressed up a bit with the turquoise rope around the hat, and a bandana to wear with it.  

It was such a fun day and Stella had a blast, that is all that matters!  Here are a few pictures of the day.

We may have to have a pony every year, just so we can see that sweet smile!

Mozzarella Yumminess!!

I was told by my coworker earlier last summer that you could make your own Mozzarella cheese from a gallon of whole milk.  I got so excited I looked more into it.  I LOVE fresh mozzarella, especially with fresh home grown tomatoes.  So I tracked down the cheese kit that she suggested.  The kit is called Ricki's Cheesemaking Kit by the New England Cheese Company.  They are based out of Massachusetts but The Beehive Cheese Company sells their kits for $25 in Ogden.  Now if you dont live in northern Utah, just check the cheesemaking site and it will tell you a list of local suppliers.

I quickly got home with my kit and a gallon of Whole milk from Sams Club and got started.  I quickly found out that Sams Club milk is Ultra-Pasteurized and does not work.  I then went to a local dairy in Riverdale, "Johnny'a Dairy," and bought another gallon of whole milk from them.  Although they are suppose to be a supplier of un-pasteurized milk as per the cheesemaking website's list (for that list click here).  So I then found Winder Dairy has un-pasteurized Whole milk and Smiths and Harmons carries it.  So I went and tried out their milk.  It worked wonderfully!  Let me tell you, it tastes AMAZING too!

Here is my first successful ball of Fresh Mozzarella Cheese!

Its not very pretty, but it sure did taste good especially on my delicious Dixie Gold tomatoes!

Go try it!  It really only takes about 30 minutes from start to finish once you know what you are doing.

Now I just want my own goats so I can try it from goats milk.  Mmmm!

Canning spaghetti sauce

So as I got into the hang of canning this year.  With help from some of the masters, I was able to can green beans, spaghetti sauce, apple sauce, strawberry apple sauce, apple pie filling, apple butter, cranberry apple butter, grape juice, and raspberry jam. Whew!  It was a crazy canning summer!
My family has never done it before, so I decided I wanted to try to can my own spaghetti sauce.
When I work I like to make quick easy meals, so spaghetti or some form of pasta seems to be the meal of choice. Needless to say we go through a lot of pasta sauce. So with my garden bursting with delicious tomatoes and Peppers I decided to get to canning.

These are by far my favorite to eat and to can.  It is an heirloom tomato called "Dixie Gold".  They are very fleshy with little seeds, so great for sauces!

 I picked 4, 5 gallon buckets of my tomatoes and a few peppers and onions and began the canning process. My cousin Stacy and I joined our tomatoes together and had a canning party.
We kind of came up with our own little recipe, it was basically a combination of 3 different recipes we had found.  So here is our secret recipe... (now just know, measurements are not exact, we just dumped stuff in and tasted it till it was good enough to bottle)

Stacy and Missy's Spaghetti Sauce

*Note: not USDA tested, our own recipe

about 75 lbs of tomatoes (peeled and ground up)

2 c Sugar

1/2 c Italian Seasonings

1/4 c Basil

3-4 bulbs of Garlic (whole bulb, not cloves)

1/4 c Garlic powder

3 Green Peppers (seeds out and ground up)

2-3 Onions diced finely

3 Jalapeño peppers (no seeds)

6 Bay Leaves

We put it in big stock pots and let them cook down to the desired consistency and then bottled them up.  It takes at least 6-8 hours for the whole process.  But totally worth it!

Here is the final product

Busy Bee

I have had these as drafts for a while, so now I am just trying to play catch up!

This past summer was a busy one for my family and I. I work 3 days a week and 1 farmers market a month. Working for a garden and having my own garden at home has kept me on my toes.
At my work we have 7 bee hives for the garden.

I have been assisting and working with the bees for a year now. We harvested the honey from their frames last month and have finally got it all bottled up. We got about 12 gallons of honey out of our 7 hives. 4 of the hives were brand new this spring, so it was a pretty good harvest. The process for extracting the honey is amazing. Well lets be honest, bees are AMAZING little creatures. It is an amazing feeling to be all dressed up in a bee suit and with your hands in the hive having bees flying all around your head. The sound is unbelievable. Once we got all of the bees off the frames, we took them inside and began the honey harvest process. For those that do not know much about how honey is made, the bees make comb on a frame that is about 14"x10" or so and then mix nectar and pollen together to make the honey. Once the cell is filled, they use wax to cap the comb to seal in the honey.
In order to get the caps off the honey, we used an electric hot knife to cut off all of the caps. If the cell is not uncapped, the honey will not flow out. We then spin them to get the honey out. The honey passes through 2 screens to get all of the bee parts and wax out of the honey. The honey is collected in 5 gallon buckets and then left for a week or two to let the wax and honey separate. Wax will rise to the top and form a crust on the top leaving all the honey underneath. Once it separates, it is ready to bottle.

The main reason I am explaining this process to you is because I wanted to show you how you can use all of the capped wax that was cut off with the hot knife, instead of just throwing it away. It is a fairly time consuming process, but so worth it in the end.
I brought home all of the capped wax in a garbage bag. I would say it weighed a good 7lbs. When I got home I pulled out my crock pot and put it on the lowest setting. I put all of the wax, honey and cut off comb into the pot.

It only took about 3 hours to melt it all. (Disclaimer: When you heat up the honey it makes it very thick) I then put it into a metal bowl and let it sit. It sat for about a week (although it didn't need that long) before I started to harvest it. It looked like it was a solid piece of wax.

The bowl was pretty heavy, but once I cracked the wax to get to the good stuff, it was only about 1/2" of wax and the rest of the bowl was all honey!

I then scraped off all of the honey off of the wax.  There were still small pieces of wax left in the honey so I then put it through 2 strainers to get all of the wax out.  Now I learned the hard way, use crappy cheap strainers because the little pieces of wax are pretty much impossible to get out.  I just threw mine away when I was done.
        I did not have any empty honey bears available, so I just used some of my Ball jars. 
        Then I wanted to make the wax into an easier form, so I melted it all in my double boiler and stored them in more Ball jars.

Here is the wax cooling in the jars

The finished product

It was very time consuming, but worth every minute!  

For Christmas last year, I was given 3 supers and 30 frames!  So now let the beekeeping really begin, except this time I get to do it all by myself!  Im so excited!