Bees Are About!

Vet2Be and Hubby have been out with the bees a few times this spring. Yay! The bees made it through the winter!

Last week when they went out they added another box to the top. When they removed the top of the hive they found it filled with burr comb already. And the burr comb had larva in it. They saw all stages of larva!

I thought about sending the camera out with them, but didn't. Vet2Be thought about bringing the camera out with him, but didn't. So we don't have photos of the larva and the burr comb--but Hubby and Vet2Be were very excited!

Recently they went out just to look. Hubby likes to spend a few minutes looking at the bees right before dinner. I think it calms his nerves a little, seeing all the workers working and feeling the nice warm weather, too.

You can really see all the bees using the second entrance towards the top of the hive.

They like the bottom entrance, too, but it is harder to see them in this photo.

It seems that we will have plenty of honey this year! Hooray! Last year we didn't take any honey from them because we weren't sure if they would make it through the winter if we did. Last spring was horrible! Most people around here planted their gardens 3 times because it would just begin to warm up, and then we would get a frost.

Not much fruit out here last year, either. And with all the construction close to our home, there were lots and lots of trees cut down. We all think the reason the bees struggled last summer was the weather killing so much of the fruit trees, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, and the loss of the trees. Hopefully we'll have a better year this year!

Dyeing Eggs with Silk Ties

I've seen this process a few times around on the internet. Skip To My Lou has a great tutorial with beautiful photos.

While I was looking for ties at the thrift store ($2 each) there was another mom with her daughter looking at ties, too. Her daughter was about 5 years old and kept asking, "This one feels nice. Is this the right fabric?" I asked the mom, "Are you going to dye eggs with silk ties, too?" "Yes." I always think it's great when I meet up with other people who are trying crazy things like me!

I invited my friend, CooleyBug, over to experiment with me. I thought that would be a great idea since she is the one that kinda got the 'blowing out eggs' thing started. We had a really nice time!

Here's the process we used and the things we figured out as we went along and looked back at what we had done. If you want to see how we blow out eggs, you can see how we do it here.

We started with blown out duck eggs. There are some blown out chicken eggs in the bowl, too, but we wanted to use duck eggs since they are much sturdier.

Old silk ties (they must be 100% silk or the dye won't transfer). We took them apart at the seams and only used the silk parts (I tucked the interfacing away in my box just in case I need tie interfacing sometime in the future).

We found that if we wet the silk before wrapping it around the egg, the silk was much easier to handle. This piece of silk was from the lining of one of the ties!

Sometimes the tie fabric was fairly thick and had to be folded and twisted on one side.

Sometimes the fabric was nice and thin and we could roll the egg in the fabric and twist the ends like a little candy.

Then we tied up the silk wrapped egg in an old rag. We decided later that we would have had better results if the rags had been cut on the bias so they would wrap around the egg more snugly.

We filled the pot with water and added 1/4 cup of white vinegar. Since the eggs were blown (hollow) we knew they wouldn't stay under the water. I added the cake cooling rack which happens to fit inside my pot.

Here's where it gets a bit wacky.... the cooling rack wasn't heavy enough so we added the colander upside down over the top.....

Then rested a pot on top of that. It worked.  I realized later that I could have used the flat weights I use for the cheese press on top of the cooling rack, too. We simmered the eggs for 30 minutes.

I put the eggs into a basket and let them drain and cool in the sink. Remember, these eggs were hollow so they filled with hot water while we were simmering them.

We unwrapped the rags and this is what we saw.

After taking off the silk ties, this is what the eggs look like. You can see the silk wrapping under the eggs.

I found one tie with Micky Mouse on it! It turned out really cute! CooleyBug took that one home because I thought her kids would really appreciate it.

One of my favorites. This was the lining of one of the ties. After we unwrapped them we had to use the same process we used for cleaning out the eggs--basically pushing air into the egg through the hole in the bottom to gently force the water out.

This is my half of the eggs put back in the bowl.

One of the things we tried was using both sides of one of the ties. You can see the two eggs with diamond shapes on them in the bowl. The darker one was the inside of the tie, the lighter one was the outside of the tie.

We learned that the tie has to be touching the egg or the dye doesn't transfer. Next time we will be sure to use rags cut on the bias. You can see a few eggs that don't have a complete transfer. 


It was really fun working with CooleyBug! She has two young daughters that came and played while we played. CooleyBug told her daughters that moms need play-dates, too! Sounds like a great idea to me!

A Simple Repair

I've seen this done somewhere... but I can't remember if it was in some old farming book or magazine or somewhere on the internet.

The caddy I use for my machine knitting tools was slowly loosing it's sides. It wasn't meant to hold alot of weight, it was meant to hold silverware and napkins, but I love the color and the little spots that are just right for my tools. I love the handle so I can carry it from one machine to another.

And I like to make things last as long as possible, too!

I filled the side pieces with wood glue, then wrapped a piece of cloth around the whole caddy, and tied a knot. Then I slipped a piece of wood into the knot and twisted it until it wouldn't twist anymore. I like to use a square-ish piece of wood. A pencil works, too, but the bigger piece gives me more to grip.

A long rag about 2" wide, my 'wooden iron', and another narrow rag.

The piece of wood is slipped through the knot and then twisted until I can't twist anymore. Then I tie the wood in place with another rag.

A view from the front. It is best to put the second rag under the first one before you start twisting so it is ready when you need it.

A few hours later the glue is dry and I can take off my simple band. You can see the wood looks secure on the left and the right side of the caddy.

All the tools back inside!

Time to get the next knitting project started!

Blown Egg Display

Here is CooleyBug's egg display.

It is so pretty sitting on top of her piano! These are eggs that she gleaned from our chickens. We love opening a box of eggs and having all different colors!

CooleyBug is the one who got me started blowing eggs. Here's the easy way to blow out (and not blow up) eggs, Blowing Out Eggs.

New Knitting Machine Weights

I found a link somewhere that I've lost that showed some weights for knitting machines made out of forks!

What a great idea! I love the fact that there are no hinges on them! I make socks and mittens on the knitting machine and often have to put a weight on the back of the knitting. It's pretty tricky when the weight has a hinge on it.

These do the trick! And since I already had a few old forks laying around, all I needed was a few rolls of pennies and some tape. Hubby bent the forks (they were a bit harder to bend in the shop than when they go in the dishwasher--go figure!) I used some cloth athletic tape because we have quite a few rolls of that (and I couldn't find where Hubby left the duct tape, either). I also taped both ends of the pennies before I taped the roll to the fork.

Another style I saw bend the tines of the forks towards the back of the handle. I'm not sure if that would make any difference or not. I like having the pennies where they are (under the bent part of the tines) because I think the weight is more centered.

To buy new weights would cost over $5.00 each. These cost me 50 cents and a few old forks :) They weigh in at about 4.5 ounces--just right for what I need!

New Curtains for Blondie

Daughter Blondie and her husband moved into a new place last month. They were so glad to be on their own again!

He is a disabled Veteran who will be going to school. Blondie is a elementary school teacher with no job right now, except substitute teaching.

That makes things a bit tight.

They don't want to eat through all their savings so they are doing the best they can with what they have and are trying to cut back on extras.

Their new place has no curtains on the sliding glass door and sidelights in the kitchen. So they can see right into their neighbor's kitchen window, and the neighbor can see into their window.

I gave Blondie two old curtains I had for the sliding glass door, and I looked around for some sheets to make curtains for the sidelights. I found an old sheet on freecycle that was in good shape. I love using sheets for big projects like this. There is soooo much yardage and fewer seams to sew!

One full-sized sheet made two sidelight curtains.

I haven't made curtains in a long time, so I was pleasantly surprised at how much I remembered. Things like always sew the side hems first, then sew the heading, and then measure from the top of the heading where the hem should end and THEN fold up the hem.

Blondie hasn't hung curtains in a long time either, so I made sure to label where the rod goes. Sometimes these simple curtains can be confusing and I've seen them hung from the hem instead of the heading!

Think that is clear enough? Hopefully Blondie will think so!

 Update 4/15/11

Blondie sent me a photo of the curtain hanging in her window. She has it tucked up to the top of the window. If it was just a little lower, then it would reach right down to the bottom.
Not too bad for an old sheet!

Bunny Progress... Good News!

Two photos of the bunny recently. Vet2Be has been diligent about applying the silver nano particles that Hubby has been making and doing research on. Darcy gets it squirted on once a day.

This was taken April 3, 2011.

This was taken April 7, 2011. The 'bunny hospital' is the downstairs bathroom shower.

Here are two earlier photos so you can see the progress.

March 20, 2011. We found the abscess and Vet2Be cleaned it out. We knew the skin above the abscess was dead (it was hard), but knew we weren't equipped to perform that type of surgery. So we cleaned out the infection and waited for Mother Nature.

March 28, 2011. The dead skin from the abscess came off one side. Vet2Be took the entire dead part off.

The first two posts about the bunny can be found here (Not For Weak Stomachs!) and here (Bunny Update).