Water For Bees, Part 2

Last Fall we noticed that a new neighbor across the canyon had moved in several bee hives, and that his honey bees were drowning in our bird bath because the sides of the dish were apparently too steep for them to climb out of the water.  See Water For Bees from November 26, 2014.

I was so impressed with the design of a landing platform for bees from City Boy Hens that I decided to make one for our yard, although I did not go so far as to make the very handsome exterior container for it.  Instead, we have it sitting in a large fiberglass pot.

Landing Platform

First I went to the lumberyard and bought a cedar fence board and to Smart & Final to buy a food-grade five gallon plastic bucket.  I bought a regular bucket from the lumberyard first, but when I reviewed City Boy's instructions, I realized that the water in the bucket would go into the hive, and so it should be a food grade bucket to avoid introducing unnecessary chemicals into the hive.

Next I cut the cedar board into lengths that would fit inside the bucket and used the jig saw to cut two circular pieces for the body of the landing platform.  I also cut some smaller strips of cedar to use as cleats to join the two circular pieces together, and then drilled quarter inch holes in the piece.  I did not use any glue on the platform because, again, glue would introduce unnecessary chemicals.

Cleats Secure The Two Sides

The next step is to fill the bucket with water.

We've seen bees on it several times, but it will probably become more popular with them in the warmer weather later on.  Meanwhile, the bees continue to patronize our broccoli and lavender plants to make their honey.

The Eyes Have It

The new batch of Yukon Gold and German Butterball potatoes have arrived.  Cindy cut them up the other day into pieces with "eyes" and pieces that without.

Potato Pieces

The eye pieces are currently resting in the dark cupboard under the stairs, and the other pieces became part of dinner.

In a few days Cindy will plant them, eye side up, in grow bags to begin producing a new crop of Yukon Gold and German Butterball potatoes.

Have I mentioned that I love potatoes?

Gardener's Thumb

Cindy had been having a lot of pain in her left hand and thumb for quite a few months, and, of course, was far too stubborn to go to her doctor about it.  The pain and inflammation were so bad that her thumb was curling into her palm and she was unable to flatten out her hand without considerable pain.

She thought that this was the result of planting the garden last Spring and using her left hand to push up on the kneeler she uses.  Why the left hand?  Because you usually have something in your right hand, such as a trowel or another plant if you're right handed, so you use the left to push yourself up and that part of the left hand takes all the weight. The constant stress on her thumb probably tore something and the resulting inflammation caused the pain.  Eventually she began to lose range of motion with the thumb and even began to lose the ability to pick things up with that hand.

After watching her struggle with the turkey and heavy cooking pots at Thanksgiving, I was finally able to persuade her to get Class IV laser treatments from our chiropractor, Dr. Colleen Murphy; after the first treatment, she was able to flatten her hand again.  Since then the pain and swelling have been decreasing with every treatment, and we're very encouraged by this.

Now if she would just let it rest for a while it should be well by the time planting time arrives again.

Katydid Nymph

I was out in the garden shooting some pictures of the things that are flowering right now, including pretty blue flowers of the Plumbago out behind the fence.

When I was looking at the photos on my computer later, I realized that I also had a picture of an interesting bug on one of the flowers.

I wasn't sure what the bug was.  I thought it might be a brown cricket, because I've heard them chirping lately.  I put the photo up on the Bug Guide website to see if anyone could identify it, and a short time later the response came back that it was a Katydid nymph, probably Phaneroptera nana.

That sounded reasonable, because we've had Katydids before, mostly hanging out on our roses.

Pictures of the adult katydid at:
http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2010/09/mystery-bug-identified.html  and

http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2011/11/return-of-katydid.html

Winter Garden

The boxes and packages from seed and garden companies have started to arrive, and Cindy will soon be starting her tomato seeds for this summer, but right now the winter garden is still in full swing.

The other day she harvested some carrots and shallots.

Plenty of lettuces and other greens.

Swiss Chard is putting lots of color on the table, too.

And Broccoli flowers keep attracting the bees

.

Fried Chicken

Last Sunday's attempt at cooking fried chicken went pretty well.

This wasn't Grandma's fried chicken; as I recall, Grandma, and later Mom, first dipped the chicken pieces in milk, then dredged them in flour, melted a ton of Crisco in the skillet, and then fried all the chicken pieces in that at the same time.

Cindy's recipe for Buttermilk Pan-fried Chicken required me to make a marinade of seasonings and buttermilk, let the chicken pieces soak in the marinade overnight, dredge it in the flour and seasonings, and then fry it in vegetable oil.  We could have used lard, but I don't think we've ever actually had lard in the house, and I haven't seen Crisco for years.  

Cindy's cooking technique involved adding the flour-coated pieces one at a time, and no more than four in the oil at a time, adding them slowly to allow the oil to heat back up after each piece is added, then putting the pieces on a cookie sheet in the oven to finish crisping as the others cook.

She told me that the drumstick and thigh pieces always take longer to cook than the breast pieces, which was contrary to what I thought, since the breast pieces usually have thicker meat on them.

However, when I thought about it, I realized that some of my glass bead-making knowledge came into play here: since the chicken is refrigerated until shortly before cooking, the long, thick bones in the leg and thigh pieces are colder than the meat and act as a heat sink, pulling heat out of the meat.  When I'm making a bead on a big mandrel, I need to make sure the mandrel is heated before I start putting glass on it, or the bead may crack as the colder mandrel pulls heat out.  So next time I'll put the leg and thigh pieces in first.

Anyway, the chicken turned out fine.

Here's the recipe we used:

Pan Fried Buttermilk Chicken

4 Servings

MARINADE

2 cups buttermilk—well shaken in carton

1 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning

2 teaspoons Poultry seasoning

6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

2 teaspoons salt

Pepper to taste

COATING

 3 cups flour

1 tablespoon salt

2 tablespoons Old Bay Seasoning OR 2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning and 2 tsp Poultry Seasoning

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 cups lard, peanut or other vegetable oil for frying

For the marinade:  In a blender or food processor, or with the long whisk, combine the buttermilk, garlic, Old Bay, salt and pepper and process until smooth.  Place the chicken pieces in a zip lock plastic bag and pur in the buttermilk mixture.  Seal the bag and refrigerate overnight.

For the coating:  Combine the flour with salt, Old Bay, garlic powder and pepper.  Remove the chicken from the marinade one piece at a time and coat it liberally with the seasoned flour.  Place the coated chicken pieces on a rack and refrigerate for one hour to allow the coating to set.  Chicken may be refrigerated for up to 4 hours.  Bring chicken to room temperature about an hour before cooking.

Heat a large, heavy skillet over medium heat and add lard or oil, heating it until it is completely melted.  The fat should be 1 1/2 inches deep.  When oil is about 325 degrees, carefully and slowly add chicken pieces one at a time to let the oil come back to temperature before adding another piece (don’t crowd pieces); fry until golden brown on all sides, about 10 minutes per side.  If chicken is browning too fast, lower heat.  When chicken is done, remove it from the pan and place on baking sheet in oven at 350° or 30 minutes to crisp skin and coating.  

Serve piping hot.  

I Made A Soufflé!

During the four years that I've been doing this blog, I've written mostly about gardening, with a few side trips into food, wine and travel.

I'm still going to be doing that, but I'm also planning to write a little more about actually cooking the food we grow.  Since Cindy is an excellent and very creative cook, she's always done most of the cooking, and, since cooking has always pretty much terrified me, that's been just fine with me.

But that's not really fair to Cindy, so a couple of years ago, as a Christmas present for Cindy, I volunteered to make dinner once a month, as long as opening a bag of frozen stuff was an acceptable dinner.  I did have one dish I could make with reasonable confidence, and that was spaghetti and meatballs.  Cindy showed me how to make a delicious tomato sauce for the meatballs out of our own pureed tomatoes; it was really nice to know that I was actually making something with the food we grow in our yard.

Last summer our friend Barbara came down to visit us for "cooking camp".  Barbara wanted Cindy to teach her how to use her new pressure cooker, a device that is still waaaaaay beyond my comfort level, and I wanted to learn how to make Chicken Piccata, a dish I really like (it has capers in it, who wouldn't like it?).  That proved to be within my capability, and I can now make it with some degree of confidence.

That small step led me to think about what other dishes I like to eat, so maybe I could learn to cook them, too.

With some degree of trepidation, I asked Cindy a couple of months ago if she thought I could learn to cook a cheese soufflé.  I knew it was a complicated dish, but it's one I really love to eat.  To my surprise, she jumped at the chance to teach me how to do it.  I've done it a couple of times since with her standing close by to supervise.  A couple of nights ago, I cooked a cheese soufflé pretty much by myself, with only a few cries of "Cinnnnndy, does this look O.K.?????"

So this slight increase in confidence led me to make Cindy another gift this past Christmas:  the promise to learn four new dishes to add to my existing small repertoire, which I will continue to practice.  I'm going to learn how to do fried chicken (Yessss!  Throw Brer Rabbit into that briar patch!), a salmon dish, a dish from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking that Cindy recently was given, and a dish of Cindy's choosing.  

Tonight:  fried chicken.  We'll see how it goes.