An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away! Fighting Arthritis Naturally.

Pain is a great motivator! For months I have been dealing with pretty significant hip pain. Physical therapy hardly touches it. I was presuming my hip problem was related to other problems I'm having connected to my Myasthenia Gravis, but the neurologist recommended an x-ray and I have arthritis in that hip. Hmm...I recall a fall off a horse and a fall off a skate board that both involved my right side. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Pain is a great motivator! For months I have been dealing with pretty significant hip pain. Physical therapy hardly touches it. I was presuming my hip problem was related to other problems I'm having connected to my Myasthenia Gravis, but the neurologist recommended an x-ray and I have arthritis in that hip. Hmm...I recall a fall off a horse and a fall off a skate board that both involved my right side. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Being a Good Steward: A Lesson from Beekeeping.

A honey bee with full pollen pockets and pollen on
the landing board.

I love beekeeping. We were out inspecting our hives from top to bottom today, our first major exam for the spring. Both hives have laying queens and as soon as the nectar flow begins are likely to take off. Neither is showing any signs of swarming. (No queen cells, no drones being raised, etc.) We rearranged the boxes to put the brood on the bottom and in the two boxes above we checker-boarded which means we alternated frames of honey/pollen with empty frames so the hive knows they have plenty of room to grow. We took off the mouse guard and changed the entrance reducer from the smallest opening to the middle one. We put syrup in yesterday so the girls are all set for now and we will leave them alone (except to see if they need more syrup) for a week or two before we visit again. Colonies need a little time to recover after an inspection. Later in the spring we will be checking for pests.

Spring is Here and we still have two active hives!

Last Fall we were a little skeptical that we would still be beekeeping come spring. While things had looked good in late summer, the Fall saw one hive abscond just two weeks after we saw the queen and were confident it would be a really strong colony going into the winter. The queens in our other two hives stopped laying brood early and one hive just didn't seem to have enough bees to give us any hope it could survive the cold.

But here we are with temps in the 60s and 70s and both our hives are bringing in pollen, a good sign that brood is present. We pulled the remaining sugar patties out today and put two quarts of 1:1 syrup in each hive. I also noticed that they still have honey stores in the upper box so they seem to be in good shape food wise. In a day or two, weather permitting, we'll go down into the brood chamber and see what's up and shift the brood box to the bottom of the hive and checkerboard above which means alternating frames of honey/pollen with empty frames of drawn comb which discourages swarming and increases brood laying and hive buildup. I hope to do it tomorrow since everything I'm reading says do it as early as possible in the season several weeks before the red buds bloom.

So tomorrow we will be doing a serious exam and also be looking for signs of early swarming.

Let the fun begin.

Doing Lent with Grandkids: The Pretzel Prayer Position

Sunset over Apalachicola Bay

We just got back from a trip to St. George Island, FL and Charleston, SC. It was a great break from the cold. When we left February 18th it was snowing in Woodstock. We returned to temps in the upper 60s and the very beginning of buds swelling with the promise of an early spring.

While I enjoyed every minute of our trip, I missed our grandchildren. The ones we see most frequently live only twenty minutes away and visit every week. We didn't see them for about two weeks before we left because they were passing around a bug and we certainly didn't want to pick it up and take it on our trip. So we hadn't seen them for over a month and were happy at the thought of their visit.

The youngest, Max, who is going on two wanted to call us often while we were away and say his newest word "tractor" to Paka. (We knew he meant, "Please take me for a ride on the tractor.") He calls me "Mom" and likes me to sing his special Max song which lately he has chimed in on when I reach "baby Max." At that age every day brings more words and phrases.

Whenever Max called, I said he and his sisters would have to come over and make pretzels after we got home. The girls eagerly agreed that was a good idea.

Well, we arrived home Monday night and Tuesday afternoon became pretzel day with the grandkids, an activity their mom remembers well from Lent growing up. Why pretzels in Lent? Because they look like little praying arms. In fact, the word pretzel comes from high German and means "little arms." The small breads are believed to have developed in the monastery.

So I pulled out my pretzel handout (I used to use it with my religion classes) and we made pretzels together. They did a great job rolling, shaping, and "painting" the pretzels with egg to get a nice brown color during baking. And here is what I read to them:

We said grace with our arms in pretzel prayer position

The Pretzel Story: Many years ago people, especially monks, prayed with their arms folded across their chests. During Lent they kept a very strict fast with only one meal a day and a few snacks to keep up strength -- usually bread. One day, a monk working in the kitchen took the bread dough and made it in pretzel shapes like little praying arms to remind his brother monks to devote themselves to prayer. When you eat a pretzel, let it remind you to pray like the early Christians.

Pretzel prayer: Dear Jesus, bless this little bread. Help it remind me to pray and do penance during this holy season of Lent. 

Pretzel Recipe: Dissolve one Tablespoon of dry yeast in 1 1/2 cups of very warm water. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 Tablespoon of sugar. Mix well until yeast and sugar are dissolved. Add about 4 cups of flour (you can use a combination of white and whole wheat flour if you like). Knead dough until smooth. Roll in ropes and twist into pretzel shapes. Bake at 425 degrees about 15 minutes. For a browner shiny pretzel brush pretzels with beaten egg before baking. 

Enjoy making pretzels. Coming soon: Hot Cross Buns.