adventures in bee keeping

well, okay, we don't actually have any bees that we are keeping (yet) but you can learn some of the basics in this really awesome book that drew got out of the library, a slice of organic life. i LOVE this book! i bought a copy on amazon, it's that neat-o. it's full of all kinds of nifty things you can do to live greener, whether you live in a city apartment or have a few acres in the country. it covers everything from growing herbs in pots to keeping bees, chickens, milk cows and pigs to making preserves to using natural cleaners to making your own beeswax floor polish!!!! i really like the floor polish one. when i was a kid we had this floor buffer, which was kind of like a vacuum cleaner but it had these two round brushes and it was kind of out of control wild when turned on. you had to hold on tight or it could totally spin away from you. i have no idea where my mother got it. anyway, it was really fun to use and i remember going through a phase where me and my brothers, joe and justin, andi think my sister, molly, too, would polish the kitchen, dining room and hall floors. there we were on hands and knees putting polish on the floors and then breaking out the buffer. i know it's hard to believe that this could have been any fun for kids but we had a blast doing it and the floors looked so nice. i don't even think you're supposed to wax linoleum floors like the one in my parents' kitchen, and it's the same floor that they have now. they've had that baby for going on 34 or 35 years and there's just this one tile that's a little smashed in one corner. i remember being a squirt when my dad was putting it in and leaning up against his back so i could peek over his shoulder. it's amazing parents get anything done. how that floor has lasted so long i have no idea but perhaps the recreational waxing had something to do with it. if anyone wonders how i grew up to be a martha of the first magnitude, this post should clear that right up.

speaking of which we have a ton of tomato plants! there are the five that jimbo bought that are planted in the garden and they've gone wild! one of them is over three feet tall and most of the rest are not far behind. ironically, it's the smallest plant that we got our first two tomatoes from and they were delicious! then we have the eight or so "volunteers" that drew was experimenting with on the other side of the house in the rose bed. he wondered if we'd get any tomatoes if he just threw some old ones we didn't get around to using on the ground and guess what? they grow. there are easily eight tomato plants over there (roma tomatoes) and that's after me thinning them out. if i'd realized he was going to throw so many tomatoes around i'd have suggested he toss them somewhere other than the rose bed, but oh well.

i've decide i need to learn how to can things because we're gonna have a glut of tomatoes and i use chopped tomatoes so much for cooking, and it would be a crime to let them go to waste. besides, there's nothing like an in-season tomato fresh from your own garden. my mom used to can tomatoes all the time when i was a kid so i will get some tips from her and research it a bit at the library and on the internet. i hated canning tomatoes when i was a kid. the fricking things would make your hands burn after a while because they're so acidic, and i didn't eat tomatoes or any other vegetables if i could mange it, so it seemed doubly unjust that i was being forced to toil over the tomato grinder like some orphan child in dickens story. i also felt very oppressed when i had to pick green beans. it's pretty hilarious now since i love both green beans and tomatoes and can't wait to do some canning. just goes to show... you can never entirely escape your upbringing, not that i've tried very hard.