Bees .. Glorious Bees

Since moving to the Ponderosa, I've wanted to have my own beehive/beehives to help pollinate all the beautiful fruit and flowers that we have.  In fact, I've read somewhere that the earth couldn't survive more than 2 years without bees which pretty much indicates, bees are pretty beneficial to us and our world.

To our surprise when we first moved into the Ponderosa we found that the entire back wall of the outhouse was home to .. you guessed it ... bees.  The wall was at least 4-5 metres long and the previous owners had tried to kill them, but without success.

We decided there was no way we were going to renovate the outhouse without trying to find a way to "relocate" the bees on the property.  I enquired to many bee keepers to see if they could assist, but again without success.  They all wanted to take the bees, but were reluctant to relocate them for us.

Two summers ago, we noticed the bees were gone.  From what we could see, all of the bees had swarmed inside the outhouse, left the back wall, and died trying to get out of the building.  It was quite a sad sight to see and the smell was horrible.  Oh well I thought .. I'll just have to source some bees inside a hive and place them on the property.

Last summer .. we noticed the bees were back but not living inside the outhouse or the wall this time.  They had found a new home in one of our wine barrels that sits on the deck of the outhouse.  Grrr ... great to have them around the vegetable and fruit garden doing their business .. but not good when I'm back to square one again .. trying to relocate the bees.

I know where I want the hive on the property and I even know what type of hive I want.  I'm just not sure whether I will have to get more bees or wait for my original ones to do their thing and swarm at some stage.  I have the next few months to come up with a plan.

I've seriously been thinking of doing a beekeeping course just to get the basics sorted.  My husbands cousin did it for a while and said it's not rocket science .. but of course nothing really is once you get the hang of things.

Happy learning peeps!

Fab-u-licious Feijoas

Feijoas have to be one of the best fruits available in New Zealand and from April to May we get a continuous supply of them.  In fact we have about 10 trees of different varieties all formed into a hedge around our garden shed.

To me feijoas send back wonderful childhood memories of sitting under neath my grandparents feijoa tree in Ngaruawahia with my cousins having to spoon all the flesh in a bowl.  It usually went half in the bowl and half in my mouth.  We would take the bowl inside and add sugar .. then eat it all ..and start all over again.

Later in life I purchased my grandparents property and continued reaping the rewards of their wonderful feijoa tree.  When my daughters were old enough, their daily job for the 3 weeks this tree fruited was to pick the fruit up.  We would get a supermarket bag everyday.  It was awesome for the first couple of weeks but in the end I would end up sending bags all over the neighbourhood.  Of course we couldn't eat a supermarket bag of feijoas each day so I would take all the flesh out just as I did as a child and freeze it down.

Every home I've lived in since purchasing my grandparents home has included a feijoa tree or four, although now I don't put sugar in with the feijoa flesh, I tend to use honey for a healthier version to sweetness.

Feijoa's freshly gathered.

Feijoa pulp ready to freeze

I find the best recipes for feijoas is anything that uses banana as the main flavour, such as banana cake or banana loaf, although my favourite has to be fresh from the fruit.

Happy living peeps!!

Photo Frames or Shelves

I know I haven't posted a lot during this month, but it's fair to say May has been challenging to say the least.  In saying this, I do have one post that I wanted to share which completes my daughter Aaliyah's room.

One of the walls needed something and I found some big photo frames I had in storage.  I knew they wouldn't be used in their bare format so decided to make some shelves out of them.  My husband whipped up the backs of them to ensure there was "shelf space" and I simply painted them .. with yip you guessed it ... Annie sloan - pure white and duck egg blue in fact.

Before

After

Each shelf individually

I love the finished result and these shelves definitely fill the wall space.  The hardest thing was for Aaliyah to decide what she wanted to display, which over time I'm guessing she will chop and change to suit her needs.

Happy living peeps!

Two of Us

It's been nearly a week since mothers day and I just had to share this great story on my blog.  You see on  Monday I walked into the office and was inundated with emails and private facebook messages from old friends and colleagues about a wonderful article I had written.

Thinking most of them were referring to my blog I didn't really think anything was out of the ordinary until they mentioned it was about mothers day.  Hmmm ... now I was a little confused as I didn't recall doing an article on mothers day!

I googled the article and read it.  It was a lovely piece  .. a tribute to those mothers who had gone too soon.  Then I saw where the confusion was.  My name on the article as the author.  I knew I didn't write the piece and I knew the author wasn't a mistake either.  

The solution?  To my surprise there is someone who shares my name.  This might not be a big deal to some people, but to me it is.  Let's face it, Delwyn isn't the most popular of names and to have my surname as well, what are the odds?   I chuckled and shared my findings with a couple of people sitting around me.  In return one responded saying how relieved she was.  Puzzled I asked why ... she replied "I know your mum and felt sad when I read the article". I reassured her that my mum was very much alive and even gave her mum's number to make contact.

Yes Monday was an interesting day for me.  If you are keen to read the article, then click HERE.

Happy learning peeps

Making My Own Bacon

Years ago, before the food channel was around, I watched a travel programme where the presenter was in Italy and was being shown the italian way of curing meats such as bacon, salami, prosciutto and pancetta.  They even cured a whole leg of lamb.  I was so intrigued with the programme that I knew I would experiment with the techniques one day.

First off the ranks is bacon.  As per normal I did some research on what's the best cut of pork to use, different flavourings and whether to cold smoke the bacon or not.

I decided to go with a nice simple technique first and go from there.  I apologise that the instructions aren't very precise, but I was doing this off the cuff and at the end of the day, that's what food is all about.  Giving something a go with flavours you think you will like.

Ingredients
1 kg of pork belly - whole and without the bone.
Equal parts of sea salt and brown sugar

Method
In an airtight container, place the salt and sugar and mix well.

Get a large airtight container, big enough to lay the pork belly flat.

Sprinkle a handful of the salt mixture on the bottom of the container, then lay the pork belly on top.  Sprinkle another handful of the salt mixture on the top of the pork belly.  Place the lit on the container and store in the fridge for 24 hours.  Repeat this process for 5 days.

Once you have completed the first 5 days,  leave the bacon covered in the fridge for a further 5 days to cure.

On the 11th day, take the bacon out and wash it under running cold water completely.  Pat dry.  At this point you can slice thinly and start to enjoy your bacon which is what I did.

OR you can enter the realm of cold smoking the bacon.  I haven't tried this method yet, but that's definitely on my radar.

Happy learning peeps!