September Miscellany

At the start of this month, our town hosted the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall. This 3/5 scale replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall is brought to different parts of the country. It went beyond all expectations I had. Our community came together, with countless volunteers and sponsors, to bring this feature to our area to honor those that sacrificed their lives and fought for our country. It was a truly moving experience.

That same night, we drove up to the big peanut monument that many travelers might recognize from their drive on Interstate 75. I have been all over the country and when people tell me they’ve driven through Georgia, they always know where I mean when I tell them, “I’m from the town with the big peanut.” Justin remembers when his Daddy was in the Exchange Club and they helped renovate it many years ago. My dad’s leadership class helped get the gazebo built, but it is all in desperate need of repair. You can tell the points of the crown are supposed to be lit up but the entire thing needs to be re-wired. I believe I see a project coming on!

Wyatt started AWANA at church a few weeks ago. He is a Cubbie and is doing really well according to Ms. Mary and Ms. Marie. He learns a new Bible verse every week and is so proud to call folks and tell them what he’s learned. I’m thankful he is engaged and interested in learning about Christianity!

Riding down the dirt road with Justin the other day, I yelled, “STOP HERE!” I hopped out barefooted and snapped this picture of this beautiful red cow with the sun flare. I love it. The flare is a little overwhelming, but that’s practically how strong it is trying to drive down that road at the time.

We bottled up our honey after letting the “hive trash”—bits of beeswax, etc.—clear out of it. It is amazing to see and taste the difference in the dark and light honey and to know that these honeys came out of the same boxes!

This past weekend, my SIL Amanda told me about giant spiders that make their webs down the dirt road. Of course I just HAD to see them. She faced her ultimate fear and drove me down there, waited on the golf cart for me to get a stick, and didn’t even cry a tiny bit when I lifted it off its web and placed in on the dirt road to snap a few quick shots. They really are huge and have furry little leg warmer-esque legs.

Later in the day, Justin got out his (new-to-him) planter and fertilized the garden rows. He is busy planting our winter garden: collards, mustards, broccoli, spinach, and cabbage. I am a green vegetable fan so I am very excited about this harvest!

 

Pulling Down Honey

Monday morning, we headed out to Justin’s parent’s house where our honeybees reside to steal their summer’s toil. We were robbing honey for our own use.

I spotted this dragonfly on the day lily stems and couldn’t resist snapping a picture of its fancy iridescent body and translucent wings.

I was able to get a photo of Justin smoking and dusting the bees off the frames before I got stung. One of the bees got tangled up in my hair and stung me right at my hair line. It hurt like a beast and I immediately popped two Benadryl (even though they were years out of date).

I woke up Tuesday morning like this:

Sorry I know it’s gross, but apparently the venom from the honeybee traveled down my face and made my entire eye swell shut. I quickly made it to the family clinic in town and walked away with a prescription for steroids, prescription antihistamines, and fresh Benadryl that wasn’t out of date. I slept most of the rest of the day. I was better enough on Wednesday to be able to drive and head off to the Governor’s Tourism Conference in Augusta.

***Now back to the original programming***

With the exception of the  one of her scraping honey combs, Sami took all of these pictures. I shamelessly use her photographic genius for blog material with her gracious permission.

 

 

This is what the uncapped frames look like right out of the hive. The bees seal each compartment with beeswax.

We scraped, scraped, scraped. Usually pros use a hot uncapping knife and load their frames into a centrifuge but we haven’t become that high tech. We just scrape the cappings and honey into a colander. We let the honey drain out of the wax and into a giant Tupperware bowl.

 

 

 

Our frames have plastic foundations to build their combs on. We stack the scraped frames up and put them out by the hives for the bees to clean off. They will clear every bit of honey out of the pots and frames in no time!

 

After that, we strained the honey a bit more. I like to get as much of the cappings and beeswax out of the way as possible.

   

Amanda squeezed the cappings to get every last bit of honey out. I think she was just having fun making a mess too! Justin said eventually the honey will drain out of the cappings on its own.

    

Catching every last drop. It’s a messy business and we don’t want to lose any of that precious honey!

   

    

While we were scraping the honey from the frames, Mrs. Desiree popped some biscuits into the oven. There’s nothing better than hot biscuits that have been rained down upon with fresh-from-the-hive honey!

 

After we finished scraping all of the honey, Sami snapped a few pictures of the kids and Mr. Sheldon digging sweet potatoes from the garden. Some of them were bigger than two hands!

 

Later that afternoon, we had a cookout at my Mama and Daddy’s house. We wanted to get a picture of all three boys together and some with Mimi and Pop. This was probably Sami’s hardest session ever. Wyatt and Liam were being ornery and neither would smile on cue. Thankfully, she was able to get at least one good picture of the three of them—even if it took some considerable Photoshopping skills!

The bees are moving in

Justin moved some of our bee hives to our (unused) tennis court. Hopefully we will have some great honey this summer!

I am so thankful to have a husband that loves these kinds of projects. When he first told me a few years ago that he wanted to get bees, I was against it for the most part. We had no experience doing something like that, I was scared the kids would get stung, etc. Thankfully, he does his research and has been successful stocking us with fresh, homegrown honey for the past two years. I don’t know if I’m biased but it is the best honey to me. It just tastes different than what you can buy in the store and there are few things better than gnawing on fresh honeycomb!

September

This month has been very busy. We started it off celebrating Suzi’s 24th birthday. Mama didn’t have a “4” candle so she encouraged everyone to do some math with Suzi’s cake.

That day was the first UGA football game so these two cousins shared the excitement with their own jerseys. UGA didn’t win, but it was an exciting game to watch.
  
We also went to our high school football game which was against the Crisp County Cougars, David’s alma mater. Bless his heart, he was the only one cheering for the Cougars on the home side.
    
You might not have noticed it in the pictures above, but I got a hair cut too. I asked for it to be at my shoulders and the stylist got a little snip happy. I have to tell myself that it’s just hair and that it will grow back.

Justin, Wyatt, and I were out riding dirt roads one day and got this beautiful picture. I can’t wait until we can move out to the country!
 
I got this ornamental banana plant the other day for participating in a survey. I want some for my house!

Justin and I pulled down some more honey. We got a gallon and a half. What a sticky mess!
   
We went up to Bass Pro Shops over Labor Day weekend and stumbled onto a family fun day there. Wyatt got his face painted like a puppy, got to do some crafts, and played some games. It was a fun day.
      
Wyatt makes fun with all of the yard cats at my in-laws’ house. This poor kitty got to be tricycle cargo for a little while.
 
This is the only camo recliner the Cook boys can have at our house, but Wyatt loves it so much!
 
I went to a farm for work and this was such a cool sight. Millions of pine tree seedlings as far as you could see!

This past weekend, we were invited to Dinner and Doves, hosted by NG Turf. My AGL classmate Jutt invited all of us to come. Justin was very excited to be going to a dove shoot on the opening day of dove season. We had a blast. We brought Wyatt with us and I took him to see our friends Katy and Mitch and their kids Sadie and Eli while Justin was in the field hunting. It was a quick trip up to just west of Atlanta and it made for a long day but we had a great time!
     
The morning we left for Dinner and Doves, we stopped at a few yard sales and an estate sale. I found the mother lode of old Tupperware. These big storage containers are going to be perfect for Christmas cookies this year! All of this for $40. That’s a steal!

Last night, I noticed a rain frog on our front door. Even though I am terrified of frogs, I grabbed Wyatt so he could see its underside up close. He liked “touching his belly, Mama” through the glass.

Maybe I’m cut out to be a “boy mama” after all!