A honey of a day

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon and the better part of the evening collecting the honey from our hardworking bees. It was a messy, sticky job, but mmmm-mmmm, the results were worth the work. After Paul snatched the 3 extra "supers" (which is a box with 10 frames of wood in it that the bees build their honey combs on) from the bees and brought them into the garage, he cleared any remaining bees off and stacked them in the kitchen. We left 2 "super" boxes on each hive (we have 2 hives so far). One box is for their food supply for the winter and the other is for their brood (little baby bees).

Paul took one frame out at a time and skimmed off the honeycomb's wax tops with a heated knife. Each little comb is filled to the brim with pure delicious honey. Bees are actually very clean, particular animals. They even have their own "garbage dump" in a corner of the hive where they bury any invading insects in an antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal goop called propolis (which is very useful to humans and I intend to collect it at some point and experiment).

After decapping, he put the frame in Uncle Mike's homemade honey extractor (that's my handy brother-in-law). After positioning 4 of the frames in the extractor, the boys turned the crank and spun the honey out onto the sides of the wooden barrel.

The honey drips down the sides and collects at the bottom of the barrel and the frame is taken out checked to see if the combs are empty, and the process is repeated on the other side (those hardworking bees build the comb out on both sides of the frame).

After enough honey collects on the bottom, we take the cap off the litte white pipe, and drain the honey into a strainer that sits in the top of a 5 gallon bucket (the strainer collects any extra wax or things that don't belong in the honey).
The honeycomb caps that Paul cut off got their fair share of use too. The kids got plenty of chances to taste-test the wax caps (which were covered in honey, yum... their favorite part). The rest of the wax was strained (to remove as much honey as would drain), then warmed in a double boiler to melt the wax. Once the wax was melted (but still mixed with the honey that wouldn't strain), we poured it into a bowl to let it harden. The wax will float and harden, and the remaining honey will settle to the bottom. Then we break out the wax, rinse it, and save it for one of our winter experiments.... Candle-making!

Then came the clean up... sticky, waxy and messy. I think it took us almost as long to clean up as it did to extract the honey, but there you have it... 6 hours of work for a year's worth of honey and our hands-on homeschool lesson for the week...

Nathan liked the taste-testing too... I'm not sure, but I think he rubbed it all over his head. Whatever it was, it was a goopy mess...

Apple Sch'mear and a trip to Norway

If you've ever watched one of my favorite movies, "Cheaper by the Dozen", you've seen the game Apple Sch'mear. We had gone apple picking several times in August and made all sorts of goodies with them. We also had a bunch of the smaller apples left over that were starting to attract fruit flies in our laundry room...

... so we decided to try our our own game of Apple Sch'mear. It involves a willing volunteer pitching an apple to someone who is waiting to turn it in applesauce with a tennis racket. The juice goes everywhere and the kids have tons of fun (so do our animals as they clean up the mess).

Our trip to Norway
For the last two weeks, and the next month or so, we'll be traveling around and studying Europe. We just finished our "two week stay" in Norway, the Land of the Midnight Sun. We ended our tour with an authentic Norwegian meal. Since my not too distant relatives are from Sweden and Paul's great grandpa is from Norway, we felt "at home" with these cultural foods.

If you haven't figured out by now, our dining room was transformed into a Norwegian restaurant. The meal consisted of Norwegian meatballs (yes, they really were Norwegian style. We found out the slight difference between Norwegian and Swedish meatballs is in the gravy) and potato soup. It deliciously filling. No fruit soup for dessert this time, though.

Nathan's 2nd Birthday

Nathan turned two yesterday. He is a character. He's LOUD and active, and is unwilling to miss out on any of the fun that his older brothers and sisters are having. I enjoy this age soooo much. When Paul and I got back from our trip and I was putting him to bed for the night, he said, "I miss you." Awww, melt my heart... He will also spontaneously say, "I wuv you, mommia". I'm not sure why, but he has gotten into the habit of saying "mommia". Not all the time, just when he really wants my attention. He knows that he's being funny when he says it. I think he may be the upcoming comedian of the family. He'll do something goofy, then look at me and ask, "Funny, mommy?" He cracks me up.

We met daddy at the park for lunch and went fishing after Paul had to leave. We had a dandy of a time getting Nathan to settle down and smile for a picture. He knew what we wanted and avoided eye contact with the camera. After poking, prodding and tickling, we managed to squeak out a few grins. He was so excited that it was his birthday and everyone got to sing, "happy birthday" to him!

Niagra Falls

After our drive to Niagra Falls, we settled into the Shearton Hotel in Canada and headed to the Crown Plaza (next door) for dinnner. Their dining area had a great view of the Falls and since the sun was setting while we were eating, we were able to watch them turn on the light show that lit up the water. Back at our room, we had a wall of glass that also overlooked the Falls to the left and the city of Niagra on the right.

Friday, we started the day with a bountiful breakfast at our hotel restaurant (again, overlooking the falls), then headed out for a full day of touring. Our first adventure was just across the street where we took the famous "Maid of the Mist" boat tour. It took us past the American Falls (I may be bias, but I thought that the American Falls may be a bit prettier) and into the midst of the Horseshoe Falls. The power of the thundering, rushing water is incredible (and loud). The mist from the impact of the water on the surface went hundreds of feet into the air and would have saturated us if not for our ever fashionable rain garb.

After our boat trip (a must-do), we walked along the path, past the American Falls, to an eye level view of the Horseshoe Falls. The speed and swiftness of the surging water was breathtaking as it fell over the edge. We took a "Journey Beneath the Falls" which took us 125 feet straight down in an elevator and out onto a platform where we could see a side view of the water cascading from the Horseshoe Falls above. (Also a very wet tour... thus the yellow rainwear). We were able to walk through a tunnel that led behind the falls to two portals where we could view the water coming straight down. I thought that part was a bit disappointing since you could see absolutely nothing but a white wall of water covering the opening, but Paul, really got a kick out of the sound of the thundering water reverberating off the walls... (I think it has to do with the inate urge of the engineer to think outside the box... or tunnel). The walls of the tunnel were lined with historical and informational posters about the Falls (which I found very interesting).

After a full day of sightseeing, we headed back to our hotel for dinner, and then out to the IMAX to see a movie about the knuckleheads that tried to barrel over the falls. Only about 15 people have tried (which surprised me), and 1/3 of them died in the attempt. The most interesting story was a 7 year old boy in the 60's that was in a boating accident. He only had a lifejacket and a swimsuit on, and survived without any problems (...except for maybe a fear of boating :)

The next day, we drove a few miles down the Niagra River to see the whirlpool and rapids. The Niagra rapids are known to be one of the most difficult rapids in the world. It is illegal to try to ride down them anymore (for good reason). Then we took the Rainbow Bridge back into the United States. The streets on the American side were anything but appealing (filled with run down Indian cuisine restaurants), but there was something comforting about being back on "our" side. We headed to Goat Island State Park (a good name, don't you think?) to view the falls from the American side. You certainly don't get the same effect since you can't really see both falls at the same time, but the view was still amazing.

We are now on our way back to Illinois. There were quite a few times during the weekend that we wondered how it would work to bring all 6 (soon to be 7) kids with us. It would be a challenge, for sure, and being that we saw no one with more than 3 kids, I'm sure we'd be almost as much of an attraction as the falls, but a trip back with the whole family has been our intention from the beginning. Now that we have an idea of the worthwhile (and affordable) sights, the only question is when...

Oh, and THANKS sooooo much to both of our parents for taking such good care of our crew while we were gone!!!!!!!