Wow, where did August go? I  just realized that it has been over a week since I actually blogged. I haven’t gone anywhere. I have just been so busy that there hasn’t been much time for blogging. Now I am trying to recall everything that I’ve done that I should have been blogging about, because not only can I share my activities with you through my blog, but it also acts a journal of my activities for me.

With lots of vegetables being ready to pick I have been doing a lot of preserving. To this point I have frozen several batches of swiss chard and kale and some green beans and rhubarb. I have also pickled beets and green beans.

My husband harvested honey and we filtered and bottled, I think it was, about 45 lbs of honey. It is always fun when he brings in a new box of honey because each one has a different flavor. That is the way honey should be. The flavor of the honey depends on what the bees have been foraging, so the flavor, and I would imagine the nutrients, would depend on what is in bloom. In this most recent honey harvest I’m sure that there was honey made from clover, buckwheat, lavender, sunflowers, cone flowers, and those are just ones where I saw the bees foraging. I’m certain there were more. Right now the bees are still foraging in the clover and squash, as well as goldenrod and probably other things where we haven’t seen them.

I have also been processing the bees wax for use in my balms. This is a long process as it takes several rounds of boiling the wax and then letting it cool. When the wax hardens any particles that are not wax will have floated to the bottom and are scraped off. This cycle it repeated until the wax is clean.

I have been working on cleaning garlic, now that it is dry, and getting it to markets. Click https://wordpress.com/post/92701152/407/ for locations where you can purchase it.

We have had our farm stand set up since Friday and a few people have stopped and made purchases. We thank them for their business. In addition to garlic we are selling soap, raw honey, free range eggs, and whatever veggies we have available. Our farm, and farm stand, is located at 8650 Crawford Road, Columbus Township, Michigan. We are only picking small amounts of veggies at this point because I would like to preserve or eat whatever we don’t sell, and preserving takes a lot of time. Currently we are picking green beans, swiss chard, kale, cabbage, green beans, hot peppers, mild peppers, beets, carrots, and pie pumpkins, and did I mention green beans. Thus far we have only used folding tables under an umbrella to set the produce on, but because my husband worked so hard today, we will begin using our farm wagon tomorrow. (I hope to post pictures soon)

The weather has been hot and dry for the most part with the exception of a  couple of flannel shirt days. Pretty much what you can expect for August in these parts. We have had to water the gardens regularly and do what we can to protect then from deer. I think we finally got that part (protecting them from the deer) figured out, and I’ll post some pictures soon.

My honey/oatmeal soap is ready. I named it “Don’t Eat It!” Breakfast Bar Soap. I thought it was kind of cute.

The rest of the week is going to be busy as well, but I will try my tech support, who by the way just graduated from Specs Howard’s Digital Media Arts program, (Congratulations Lindell)  to help me get some pictures up.

I hope you are enjoying this summer as much as I am. Until next time. 🙂