I recently extracted honey from three of my hives and I'm happy to report I had a record honey harvest--7 gallons!

My friend Tisha came over to help and fortunately, she took a bunch of pictures.  Here's a very quick recap.

Honey Harvest is an exciting time on our little farm, so the entire gang came over to watch what was happening. 

The first thing I did after donning my bee suit, was to get my smoker going.  I packed it full of hickory chips, paper, dried leaves and a small piece of firestarter.

I then sprayed Bee Quick onto a fuming board.  Bee Quick is an all natural substance that has a scent bees don't like although ironically, I think it smells pretty darn good.  The fuming board is a wood cover that has a thick piece of felt on one side.  The felt absorbs the Bee Quick. 

Next I opened my first hive and saw that the top super (box) was full of honey.  The only problem was that it was also packed with bees, so I placed the fuming board on top the hive. 

Since the bees didn't like how it smelled, they moved down and away from it. 

I also smoked the hive to get the bees to calm down a bit.

About 10 minutes later, I removed the top super and found most of the bees were gone and many of frames were filled with honey.

This frame had lots of honey along with a few bees who were still hanging around and several brood cells.  Those big white cells on the bottom of the frame are bee larvae.

Next, I carried the supers away from the hives and manually removed the remaining bees from the frames by rubbing them off with my glove.

The bees were just beginning to build out this frame, so I left it alone.

Once we had three supers full of honey, Tisha and I loaded them (and about a dozen straggler bees) into my car and drove to a honey house owned by David, my beekeeping mentor.  David is a professional beekeeper (he maintains >170 hives) as well as an amazing homesteader.  Several years ago, he moved out to the country, hand built a beautiful house and this awesome barn--which has a large honey extraction facility inside. 

In order to get the honey out of the frames, the first thing I needed to do was to take a hot electric "knife" and cut/melt the wax caps off the comb.

I then placed the frames inside the extractor, which is more or less a glorified centrifuge.

The frames were then spun inside the centrifuge, until all the honey was whipped out of them.  The honey settled on the bottom of the extractor whereupon I drained it out and sent through several filters. 

Once my honey was completely filtered, it was bottled up and it will ultimately be eaten by us, given as gifts or sold.  In fact, this year I harvested enough honey that I'm actually going to try selling some of it at our local Farmer's Market.  

 Yet despite the fact it was an extremely successful honey harvest, all was not well.  I wound up losing my newest hive.  (Do you remember the swarm I captured about 2 months ago?  Unfortunately, those bees didn't make it--the hive was empty except for a bunch of wax moths--yuck!)   Nonetheless, I'm quite pleased with the health and productivity of my three remaining hives.

Here's to hoping next year is just as good...if not better!

For the past 12 days, Connor and Mikaela were at their first sleep away camp (more on that a bit later) and consequently, for the first time in more than 8 years, Bob and I had more than a weekend of kid-free, alone time.  As much as we missed the kids (and boy did I ever), I have to say it that it was AWESOME.  We had such a great time reconnecting and doing activities that we love to do, but are difficult to do when the kids are around.  We spent the first couple of days at home--going for long (50 mile) bike rides and trail runs, swimming in our lake and eating out at some of our favorite local restaurants--Wild Ginger and Pescados in particular--both of which are majorly yummy! 

 The second week was even better!

We drove 6 hours to the very southwest corner of Virginia to go backpacking and mountain biking.  Our initial destination was Grayson Highlands State Park, which is known for it's wild ponies and entry into the Mount Rogers Recreation Area.  We initially didn't spend much time in the park--basically we just parked our car and hit the trails.  The first night, we hiked to the Appalachian Trail and set up camp on a bald.  Many of the mountain tops in this area are called balds because they're devoid of trees--primarily due to the grazing done by the wild ponies.   We got to the bald just as the sun was setting and fog was beginning to settle in, so we had to set up our camp rather quickly.  It wasn't until the following morning we realized just how beautiful our campsite was.   Here was the view from our tent:

It's pretty easy to see why these mountains are called the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains.  We also discovered that we were surrounded by literally hundreds of wild blueberry bushes, absolutely laden with ripe berries.

We spent about 20 minutes forgaging for our breakfast and wound up with enough wild blackberries and blueberries to completely fill us up.  What a great way to start the day!

After breakfast and soaking in the views, we started hiking along the Appalachian Trail and headed for Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia.

I should mention that I have always loved to backpack.  One of my favorite childhood memories is of summers spent backpacking with my Dad and brother on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania.  And backpacking is something that Bob and I have enjoyed doing together for years--we've literally trekked all over the world.  However, we hadn't backpacked in over eight years--basically ever since we adopted Connor and Mikaela.   To be honest, I wasn't sure if I'd like it as much as I did when I was younger.  However,  I'm happy to report that it was every bit as great as I remember!

We spent most of the morning and early afternoon hiking to Mount Rogers.  Along the way, we stopped for cold drinks out of fresh mountain streams and springs,

as well as stopped to read the log book in one A.T. shelter we passed along the way.

We ate lunch on another bald and had our first encounter with wild ponies--a mare and her foal.  They weren't  afraid us of whatsoever, and in fact, they came right up and started sniffing our packs.

They were both very cute, but covered in flies--so much so, I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. 

Eventually we made it to the summit of Mount Rogers--and at 5,729 feet, it's the highest point in Virginia.  Interestingly, the mountain top is heavily wooded, so the only way you can tell you're at the summit is by a survey marker.

We then decided to hike towards Elk Gardens and find another place to camp for the night.  I wanted to sleep out on another bald, ideally one with gorgeous views, water, a breeze and wild ponies.  Along the way, we spotted more wild horses, this time they were grazing in the forest.

We also saw lots of wildflowers and some very interesting flora.

Unfortunately, it took us f-o-r-e-v-e-r to find a decent spot to camp.  The trail was so mountainous, it was difficult to find a spot flat enough to set up a tent.  All told, we wound up hiking more than 15 miles that day before we ultimately came upon this spectacular place just as the sun was once again setting.

It was a bald that had a herd of wild ponies,

and it had views.  As the sun was setting, we saw this,

and the following morning, we awoke to this view at sunrise.

However, it was the middle of the night that was absolutely magical.  At midnight, the herd of horses descended upon our tent and were munching on the grass right outside our door.  In fact, they even nibbled on our tent a couple of times.  At one point, I said to Bob--"I think they're eating your food" to which he replied, "I don't think so."  About 2 minutes later, we heard crunch, crunch, crunch, so we bolted outside the tent, only to find the horses munching away on his box of wheat thins and granola.  (Since there are no trees on the balds, we had wedged our food into a nearby rock crevice just in case bears came into our camp.)  After we gathered all of our scattered food, we found ourselves standing in the middle of a herd of wild horses on the top of a beautiful mountain, staring up at a sky that was so clear and had so many stars that it literally sparkled!

The next morning was also breathtaking.  We opted to take the Cabin Creek Trail back to Grayson Highlands and we were so glad we did.  The trail was absolutely gorgeous--and unbeknownst to us at the time, it has been voted as one of the Top 25 most beautiful hiking trails in the country by Backpacker Magazine.

Eventually we arrived back at the State Park--motivated to go backpacking again soon and even more excited to know that Connor and Mikaela are now old enough and strong enough to join us.

We then spent some time exploring the State Park, which like every other Virginia State Park I've been to--is an absolute gem!  I wanted to talk to the rangers about the wild ponies.  It turns out, they are managed by a private organization that rounds them up once a year, vets them and sells some off if the herd is getting too large.  Unfortunately, last winter was so cold and the snow was so deep, that almost 1/3 of the ponies died.  Reportedly, the snow drifts were over 12 feet deep and consequently, the organization was unable to get food in to help them survive.  Although the ponies live in a beautiful place and are free to range and roam, their lives are not easy.

Bob and I then drove to Damascus, VA--otherwise known as Trail Town U.S.A.  The Appalachian Trail, the Virginia Creeper Trail, the Iron Mountain Trail and about 1/2 dozen other trails all run right through the town.  I've wanted to visit Damascus for years.  I've long had a (not-so) secret desire to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail and each May, literally thousands of thru-hikers descend into Damascus for a three day festival called Trail Days. 

After camping out, we decided to splurge a bit so we rented a very cute arts and crafts bungalow in town that was a block from both the Creeper Trail and Main Street.

The house was great as was Damascus. The town is repeatedly voted the friendliest town on the A.T. by thru-hikers and it sure lived up to it's reputation.  Bob and I went there to bike the Virginia Creeper Trail--reportedly one of the most beautiful "rail to trail" trails in the country.  The Creeper Trail is 34 miles long and it has 47 railroad trestles.  Most people take a shuttle to the top and ride downhill the entire way.  (It drops about 1,700 feet).  Instead, we decided to start in the middle (Damascus) and ride to and from Abington on the first day.  Abington is 16 miles away and the trail is relatively flat.  Nonetheless, it's a beautiful ride.  The entire time you are cycling either beside rivers or through gorgeous, mountainous farmland.  The town of Abington is also surprisingly beautiful and quaint.  We explored the town for a while and then stopped for smoothies at The Muffin Man Bakery on Main Street. 

(Can you tell I finally figured out how to use the timer on my camera so now I can take photos with both of us in them )?

The following day we once again began riding in Damascus and climbed for 15 miles to the end of the trail (actually we only could go as far as Green Cove--since the last trestle was closed for construction).  This 1/2 of the trail was even more beautiful.  Although it was uphill the entire way, we rode through shady forests and had rocky streams either beside or underneath the trail for most of the way.

Coming back down was fast...and fun and a whole lot easier!

Bob and I came home inspired.  We can hardly wait to go back and ride this extremely kid-friendly trail (downhill) with Connor and Mikaela.  We can also hardly wait to take them backpacking and have them experience what it's like to camp out amongst a herd of wild ponies.   And truth be told, we can hardly wait until next summer when we'll once again have another 2 weeks to ourselves to go adventuring and reconnect.  

Needless to say, we're already beginning to dream about what that adventure will entail!

Yesterday was Bob's Birthday and we had a really, really great day. 

Earlier in the week, unbeknownst to him, I had arranged for some friends to watch Connor and Mikaela in the morning so that Bob and I could go biking together.  We did a 30+ mile road ride in Amelia County--a nearby county with beautiful farms, gently rolling hills and very little traffic.  Despite the fact it was hot (almost 100 degrees), we had a great ride.  We don't usually have the opportunity to ride together because one of us needs to watch the kids.

Anyhow, when we finished the bike ride, we decided to check out Cafe Littlebury, a quaint, little cafe that recently opened.  The cafe may be small in size, but it's certainly large in taste.  They serve all sorts of delicious, gourmet salads, sandwiches and baked goods.  Bob and I split a fried green tomato panini with garlic pesto mayonaise (yummers!), a fruit salad and an incredibly huge and delicious, Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Cookie (which was to die for!).  We also each downed 4 tall glasses of ice tea -- which shows just how dehydrated we got pedalling in 100 degree heat. 

After our lunch, we picked up the kids and went home to have some family fun.  Not too long ago, we came across this video of a woman named SaFire hula hooping.  (Check it out, she's pretty amazing).  Up until seeing the video, Connor and Mikaela had been doing a little bit of hula hooping every so often with cheap hoops from Target.  However, after watching SaFire do her magic, they wanted to learn how to really hula hoop.  Naturally, I thought it would be fun (and good execise)  if we all did some hooping together, so earlier in the week, we bought supplies to make our own "performance" hoops. (Here is a link to a website that tells you how:  http://www.jasonunbound.com/hoops.html)

We then spent the next hour or so, building our own.  

The hoops we made were very simple to construct--basically they were just PVC irrigation tubing cut to size (the hoop's diameter should be about up to your belly button high).  Before we sealed them up, we poured in some BBs to add a little weight and sound, although we could have just as easily used dried beans, corn, sand and/or water.  We then put the tube together with a connector and covered the connector with some duct tape.  They were then ready to be decorated and customized with all sorts of  colorful electrical tape.

Once we finished making them, the real fun (and laughs) began.  To fully appreciate it, bear in mind that I haven't been able to hula hoop since I was about 12 years old and Bob had never been able to do it, so we initially looked totally spastic.  Of course the kids were thrilled they could out hoop us and starting to show us their stuff.  Connor started off by hooping and loving and then

proceeded to walk like an Egyptian

Of course, Mikaela, not wanting to be outdone by her brother, wanted to show us that she could run and keep her hoop going. 

 Then remarkably, Bob got his hula "groove,"

although he was totally cracking me up because it looked like he was humping his hoop (oh yeah baby!).  Shortly thereafter, almost miraculously, I figured it out as well (although to be honest, it wasn't very pretty--let's just say SaFire has nothing to worry about becasue they won't be making a silhouette video of me hooping anytime soon).  I have to say that the bigger, heavier hoops made it SO much easier to keep the hoop going. 

Of course the kids didn't want to be outdone by their parents so they started adding tricks--hopping on one leg, hooping around their knees and chest as well as and hooping with multiple hoops.  Connor wound up being able to keep three hoops going simultaneously.

Before we knew it, all four of us were hooping up a storm.

Actually, we were hooping up a major sweat because by now, it was over 100 degrees and we were H-O-T!  Naturally, that meant that we needed to jump in the lake, cool down and relax for a while.

Ahhh, life is good and

birthdays just don't get much better than this!