Harvest and Honey

Half light and half dark, with a SUN flower from our garden to honor our beloved star.

HARVEST. Belated happy Autumnal Equinox to everyone! Indeed, the day has come and gone that light and dark held equal ground; darkness has won and now we wake up and go to bed with black skies (and even a few snow flurries!!).

 We honored this transition with our annual Potato Parade tradition complete with costumes, bikes and light sticks. I've got to say, there's something very liberating about cruising around your neighborhood in costume when it's not Halloween. We definitely got some odd looks, many smiles, and, I'd like to believe, a few people thinking, "Damn, there goes a fun crew..." (I choose to ignore the people thinking, "Damn, I better think about moving..."). And of course upon our return home, the long awaited harvest of our root veggies from our teeny tiny abandoned-over-the-summer garden. I honestly thought there would be a few minuscule rotting potatoes in the wet soil, and maybe a stubby twisted carrot or two. But the Equinox fairies were on our side! Indigo's face shares a taste of the triumph we felt upon first digging our fingers into the soil and finding more than a few robust organic red potatoes. I admit I gave a few spontaneous hoots and hollers myself. Who knew spuds could inspire such joy?

There are potatoes under here!

Yup... Okay... So maybe our neighbors are founded in wanting to move...

Harvest joy

HONEY. I have got to begin by sharing this amazing fact: Archaeologists found sealed containers of honey in the ancient tombs of Egypt and it was still perfectly edible. Honey pretty much has an infinite "shelf life," although to use such a mundane term seems almost sacrilegious when talking about this golden treasure.  Want to read more? Check out this Smithsonian article. 

So some friends keep honey bees and invited us over to see the whole honey-ing (there's probably a much better word for this) process. It sort of felt like a childhood field trip, except that with my curious and slightly informed adult mind, I had so many questions! 

Do the bees eat the honey, or? I mean, they must, right? Why else would they make and store it? And if they do eat it, how do they fare when we rob them of it? 

It's made from nectar extracted from flowers, right? And then the bees sort of puke it up... or? And they're also building honey combs... puking wax up too? Or does it secrete from another body part? Do they pee it out?

And that super nifty hexagonal architectural perfection... how do they build that? Are these man-made wooden frames key, or would they be building the exact same combs naturally in a tree or something? Is it always hexagons or sometimes other shapes?

And do they maybe even put some of their babies in there? But probably not with the honey, right? Or, maybe? Isn't there some sort of "royal jelly" that comes into play with the Queen? So maybe the Queen gets to develop in the honey comb floating on magical honey but everybody else doesn't, or?

And there are sexy bees, drones, maybe? And worker bees, that are all girls? And the Queen makes all of them? Does she get it on right there in her hive? That'd be sort of incestual, right? Not too much genetic diversity... so does she go on royal vacations to get it on with exotic bee dudes? 

Like I said, I  had a lot of questions. Luckily, everyone was happy to walk me through the life cycle of bees. And the process of extracting honey from honey combs... the eating of which was nothing short of heavenly. Egyptian Royalty be damned, don't save the honey - eat it NOW. With butter. On Killer Dave's Bread. 

Comb honey - no bothering to drain the honey out of the comb cells - you just eat it by the hunk, chewing the wax like gum, or slice it thinly on toasted bread with butter.

The sharp hot knife used to slice off the waxy caps on the comb so the honey can be extracted.

The very smart yet simple machine - a heated metal bucket with a spinner like a centrifuge on the inside - put in the de-capped combs, and work the crank: the honey is spun out of the combs, drips down the sides of the barrel and comes out the spout at the bottom.

Raw honey carefully drained out into jars - voila!

And what might be on par with honey on toast? Fireweed jelly! Like the bees, Team Leslie harvested some of these wonderful flowers back in the summer to make our own sweet stuff.

Autumn is a tasty time!!