Anna & Patryk America's Got Talent Semi Final 2010

This is incredible. I hope they win the show this year. :)

We've Gone To the Bees, Part 2

It was here. Bee Day 2010. The day dawned warm and sunny. Just as we wanted.

The boxes, containing full frames of honey, were in the garage and ready to go. Now all we had to do was get started.

We actually waited until the afternoon because my dad wanted to do the extracting at the warmest point in the day. And we did not have to do the big job on our own! For a couple hours at the beginning we had a guy from church come over. He is wanting to get into beekeeping, so helping us out was a great chance for him to learn, and sure made things easier for us! After he left, a friend of my dad's came over and helped out.

This is a full frame of honey. It is capped off and ready to go.

We thought we had enough jars. . .but ended up getting so much honey that we needed more jars! We had to quickly round up more.

The cappings are melted off with this heated knife. It melts the wax and they slide right off. Leaving them looking like this:

My dad scrapped the cappings off while the guy from church spun the extractor. 

I made sure the jars of honey did not overflow. :)

This is a close-up of a frame of honey. See the white "ashy" stuff on top? that's the cappings. Under that is the honey.

See how it peels off?

The honey comes out the bottom of the extractor like this. All the waxy bits you see in the jar, and all those bubbles, float to the top and are skimmed off, later, leaving pure, clear honey.

These are pans full of cappings. We drained about 2 gallons of honey out of those pans and then the wax can be chewed for those who want to have the fun of chewing wax to get honey.

This is about half of the final honey. We ended up with about 20 gallons this year. And we found out that the bees are still producing, so we might do the extraction process again this year and get more honey.

I think we are going to be well supplied with honey for quite some time!

We've Gone To the Bees, Part 1

There aren't a whole lot of hot days left this summer. Truth is, it is now the end of August and before we know it, it will be sweater and hot apple cider weather. And in all actuality, it is already starting to feel like fall, especially in the mornings.

Knowing that our days of warm afternoons were quickly drawing to an end, and knowing that we needed to get honey out of our beehives before the cold weather set in, we dubbed last Wednesday "Bee Day."

But before Bee Day, there were preparations that had to take place.

The week before Bee Day, my dad went into his beehives to check things out and remove a couple full frames of honey.

The day before Bee Day, my dad went into the hives again and moved all the full frames out of the hive and into the garage (leaving behind as many bees as possible).

My job was to open the side door on the garage when my dad would bring the frames in (we kept it closed to keep more bees out) and lift the lid on the box that the frames were going in.

Bees really are amazing. Well, I guess I should say that God is amazing in that he created these little tiny insects that can do some amazing things.

For example. . .

When my dad went in and took out frames the week before Bee Day, this left more room in the boxes for the bees. But they did not want to waste precious space. So they created free-standing honeycomb. Perfect little hexagons that they started filling with more honey. I was quite amazed.

Anyway, here's some more pictures from the day before Bee Day. . .

Our "Honey Farm"

The garage, ready for the big day.

Buzzy Bees.

The stuff on top is comb the bees created themselves.

Lots of honeycomb. . .and lots of bees!

Fair 2010: Snickerdoodles

SNICKERDOODLES

1st Place, Snickerdoodles Category

North Idaho Fair & Rodeo 2010

1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

(1) Heat oven to 400-degrees. In large bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups sugar and butter; beat until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs; blend well. Add flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt; mix well.

(2) In small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon. Shape dough into 1-inch balls; roll in sugar-cinnamon mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

(3) Bake at 400-degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until set. Immediately remove from cookie sheets.
I found that baking the cookies for 9 minutes was just about perfect. At least in our oven. :)

Fair 2010: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES

2nd Place, Oatmeal Cookie Category

North Idaho Fair & Rodeo 2010

1-1/2 cups raisins
2 eggs
2 tablespoons water
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup butter
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1-1/3 cups brown sugar, packed
2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2-1/8 teaspoon baking powder
3-3/4 cups oatmeal

(1) Cover raisins with warm water and soak for 10 minutes. Drain thoroughly and set aside.

(2) Combine eggs, water, vanilla, butter and sugars in mixing bowl. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Add to egg mixture and beat at low speed 2-3 minutes or until smooth. Add oatmeal and raisins, and mix until blended. Chill. (I chilled overnight, but probably did not need to leave it that long)

(3) Roll into balls about 1" diameter and place on baking pan. Flatten to about 1/4".

(4) Bake at 375-degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Fair 2010: Uncle Tom's Peanut Butter Cookies

UNCLE TOM'S PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

2nd Place, Peanut Butter Cookie Category

North Idaho Fair & Rodeo 2010

2-1/2 cups flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

(1) Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside. In a mixing bowl, beat shortening and butter for 30 seconds. Add peanut butter and sugars. Beat until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add dry ingredients and beat until well blended.

(2) Shape dough into 1" balls. Place 2" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Crisscross with the tines of a fork.

(3) Bake about 10 minutes in a 375-degree oven. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Prepare For The Fair!

One of my very favorite parts of summer is the fair. Of course, with the fair means the dawning of the end of summer/fall, but it is still one of my favorite parts of the season we call Summer.


My mom and I both love to enter things in the fair. At least one of us usually enters baked goods, and I have entered photography once or twice. I did not have my act together to get any photography entered this year, but I did go on a baking spree last weekend so I would have some baked goods to enter.


I will share pictures from the fair later, but for now let me share what I entered. 

Yep, that is three batches of tasty cookies. We still have some, because, well, it takes a bit of time to eat through 3 batches of cookies when you don't eat very many at a time. I made three different kinds of cookies: Peanut Butter, Oatmeal and Snickerdoodles.


I will post the recipes in three separate posts, along with their results. Stay tuned!