. . . with his little friends.
Posts Tagged ‘winter’
Winter and the bees
Saturday, February 13th, 2010Today the temperature rose to 48 F. Granted, the thermometer is on the south side of the house in full sun, but still the air outdoors was milder than it has been and the snow is shrinking around my footprints in the garden.
I put the kettle on and wandered out to the hive to check on the bees. In winter the only chore is to dig away snow and ice that fall down on the entrance, and check for signs of bears. The top of the box is packed with newspaper between the frames and the cover to absorb moisture put off by the warmth of the colony, so ventilation isn’t too much of an issue. Still, on warm days the guard bees like to clean house of their deceased sisters; an admirable endeavor and I like to be sure the bottom hive entrance is open a bit for them.
As I approached the hive this afternoon a foraging bee flew directly to me and landed on my red sweater. Several others flew around my head as I leaned in to check the entrance. They had tunneled through the newspaper to the top entrance and were boiling around the tiny hole in the insulating plastic, tumbling over each other and making a fair amount of noise. It was a happy sight. I tugged the bottom close-piece open just a bit, brushed everyone off my sweater and went in to make tea.
Tomorrow I’ll make sugar cakes and start, I hope, toward a productive apple-blossom season. This is the recipe:
Winter Candy Feeding
Purpose: To prevent starvation during winter when stores run out.
How to make: Bring 1 quart of water to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in 5 pounds of sugar. When sugar is dissolved return to heat and bring to slow boil (stirring constantly) continue until the liquid reaches (Hard Ball) stage (260-270 Degrees. F) this will take a while. Be careful not to burn (scorch) the mixture as this will make the bees sick. Pour into a cookie sheet (the kind with sides), lined with wax paper, and allow to harden until cool. Break into pieces.
Note: Scorching the sugar is very bad for the bees, so I don’t cook this to the hard ball stage. I stir and wait until it’s a sludgey mass, then decant it into the protected cookie sheet. After it cools I scoop it out into 6″ x 6″ “servings” on larger pieces of wax paper and deposit it on top of the frames in the hive. The bees seem to enjoy chewing on the wax paper almost as much as the sugar.
How to apply: Feed to bees by placing on frames just above cluster. Do not put on honey supers for human consumption until after the candy has been removed.
Spring comes slowly to the north
Monday, February 8th, 2010But in a month or so we will be able to follow Jeremiah, 29:5 – Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. A look back to late May, 2009:
Lettuce and purple Dame's Rocket
Black salix withy and crane's bill "Londinium"
New work
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Birch St., Bangor Maine
Signs and portents
Saturday, January 30th, 2010This afternoon the thermometer read 36 F in the afternoon sun so I ventured out to the greenhouse and brought in seed trays and ProMix. The lights have been set up down cellar for two months while the earth turned on its axis toward spring, ever closer to the time a sane person might start seedlings. Today I find I can’t wait any longer – even though the temperature right now is 8.6 F and the ground is hard as iron.
Tomorrow I’ll start:
Blue Vervain – Stratify, needs light to germinate; can take up to a month
Mautitanean Malva (Mallow) – start early, thin to 3′
Queen of the Meadow – surface sow in moist area, stratify/chill in fridge 1 week, slow to germinate
Southern Charm Verbascum – takes 2 – 3 weeks to germinate
Mom’s pound cake
Thursday, January 28th, 2010Tonight I wanted to use the rest of the eggs that Carrie sent up from Portland. We’ve been doling them out, enjoying the bright yellow color and “stand up” quality to the white that are particular to cherished backyard poultry. We buy very nice eggs in the market, but they’re just not the same. Time to make Mom’s pound cake recipe.
This recipe is entirely easy. It requires one bowl, your mixer (hand or stand, doesn’t matter), common ingredients and is always dependably delicious. It does require one “secret” ingredient (lurking in the background of this photo) – 8 oz of soda. My mother’s recipe lists Fresca, but I’ve used Mountain Dew, Cherry Coke and, in this case, a pony can of Sprite that happened to be hiding in the pantry.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 C butter (Yes, I know. It’s a pound cake – it’s going to have butter. And the recipe says “softened” but you know butter wouldn’t soften in my house in January without a blowtorch, so melted works fine.)
- 3 cups sugar – Put all the ingredients in bowls so you can pour them in while mixing.
- 5 eggs – Really good ones from your friend’s chickens if possible.
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/2 tsp lemon extract (although you can go nuts here. Orange? Anise?)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- OPTIONAL If you’re not sure about your soda’s fizzy quotient, it is not cheating to add 1 tsp. baking powder.
- 1 cup Sprite, 7-UP, Or Sierra Mist, or anything fizzy and sweet
Preheat oven to 340 degrees.
Dump the melted butter in a large bowl. Add the sugar, 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing after each addition. Add extracts and mix well. Add flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add soft drink, then mix together until combined.
Pour into a greased bundt pan and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until the cake is browned on top and fairly firm. This is a lot of batter, but has never overflowed my bundt pan – I do put a cookie sheet on the rack beneath just in case. Remove cake from oven and invert pan until cake drops out.
Occasionally I add fruit to this recipe. Tonight’s version has dried strawberries for the yum.
Study on Jacopo Carucci Pontormo
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
“The Deposition”
And now, for something completely different, my warm-up page for this drawing. Sadly, I didn’t get to use the hat.
Stuffed naan
Friday, January 22nd, 2010Flatbread dough filled with a soft herb/cheese/onion mixture – this is an easy recipe if a little messy ( as all the best ones are). When I make this dish for company I finish the breads ahead of time and warm them, wrapped in foil, in the oven. This is a vegetarian version, but ground lamb is a popular addition. Actually you can use any combination of ingredients for the filling as long as the result is fairly soft and smooth – hard bits will force their way through the soft dough and spoil the surface.
Stuffed Naan
3 3/4 C unbleached white flour (I make some of this up with chapati (chick pea) flour and whole wheat to add flavor, but all white flour makes a dependable texture), 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, about 1 1/4 C plain yogurt, unsalted butter for brushing the finished breads.
Put all the ingredients except the butter in the bowl of your food processor and process until the dough follows the blade around in a ball. You may need to add more flour, or yogurt. This dough isn’t fragile and some extra whapping around won’t hurt it. Dump the dough out on to a floured board. It will be soft and sticky, but try to gather it up into a ball (you may have to push it around some with a little extra flour), and put it in an oiled bowl in a warm place to rise for about an hour. This is not a yeast dough – the time will temper the gluten in the flour but it won’t appear to rise.
Meanwhile, make the filling. In a medium bowl mix: 1 8 oz farmer cheese (or paneer, ricotta, small curd cottage cheese), 2 Tbs fresh parsley, cilantro to taste, 1/4 C sauteed onion and 1 C cooked potato. I generally make naan in conjuction with a curry, so I cook the potato and onion for that as well. Leftovers work fine, too. Mash everything together thoroughly – you should have a dry, sticky mix that won’t ooze out of the bread, or stick up through the dough.
Heat an 8 – 10″ frying pan or cast iron skillet over medium low heat – add a little vegetable oil if it’s not seasoned. Keep in mind that the pan will need to go under the broiler in a minute, so no non-stick surfaces or wooden handles allowed. Dump the dough out on to a floured board and divide into five or six balls. Some people make lots of small breads, but it takes a lot longer that way. I like to make a size that just fits in my frying pan. 
Roll a ball out to about 6″ in diameter, and drop a healthy amount of filling on the center – about 1/4 cup. Keep the rest of the dough covered so it doesn’t dry out. Gather the edges up in pleats to the center and twist slightly to make a spiraled top to your dough ball of filling. Which is a great name for a band. Flatten the ball, flip it over and roll it out to the size of your pan. Now you see why you want a soft filling.
Turn on your broiler to low. Pick up the bread and place it in the hot pan, shaking slightly so it doesn’t stick. Cook until the underside is nicely browned. Now put the pan and all under the broiler and turn off the burner. Make another naan. In a minute (or few), the top will puff up and develop brown spots.
Pull the pan out and slide the bread onto a cutting board. Race back to the stove and turn the burner on, slide the next piece into the pan. Now go back to the first naan and rub the top with a stick of unsalted butter. Cut into wedges and serve to the first lucky participant with a bowl of spinach curry and sides of yogurt and mango chutney.
Next week I’m going to try this recipe with a banana chocolate filling and powdered sugar on top. I promise to take pictures.
New work
Friday, January 15th, 2010Bangor in the snow: the corner of Merrimac and Water Sts.
Antisthenes says…
Friday, January 8th, 2010… that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer. ~Plutarch, Moralia
The forecast is for temperatures in the single digits over the weekend. We knew it was coming – we’ve had a very mild season so far and we knew it wouldn’t last. But now the snow that fell in fluffy drifts last week and blew everywhere like dust has been rained on a frozen, sculpted into odd patterns and compacted into concrete. This weekend we will be that faraway land where winter is silent and sounds thaw in spring. I need a reminder of what is under that featureless layer of white, all over the garden.
Campenula growing between seedum and dianthus in the alpine bed.
Astilbe and gunnera growing in the lower garden, near the swamp.
Elecampne growing on the stairs, over a tree peony.