Summer Harvests

I think I can declare summer is here as we have just harvested our first ever honey. Here are the bee keepers for the day, inspecting the frames to work out which ones are ready to be taken out.

 

We have three supers over the brood box.  Supers are the boxes that contain purely store ( or honey ) and no eggs or larvae because the queen is exluded using a metal mesh that she, being a larger bee cannot pass through.  We took out 8 frames from the super.  The honey is ready when all ( or most ) of the cells are capped. Here is H holding a fully capped frame.

 

 

Then we spinned the frames in a centrifugal device to extract the honey. In theory, it should empty out all the hexagonal wax cells and we could put the empty frame back into the super. In practise, as we are newbie bee keepers, all the frames warped and broke and the wax had to be melted down for another use. We also ended up with a sticky kitchen. Luckily A covered the kitchen table in cling film.

 

We got, 14x1lb of honey and some comb honey. I imagine we will have another harvest before the season is out.  I am not sure we got through shop bought 1lb of honey in a year so how are we going to cope with such a full larder ?

 

 

On the other hand, I don't have a problem with the next harvest. I have picked these beautiful David Austin roses from my garden. Yes, they smell as gorgeous as they look. And they all have different smell. My favourite is the smell of the yellow one, called Molineux. Who would have thought, being named after a football stadium, a rose could smell so sweet.

 

When we first moved into this house in 2009, my next door neighbour saw me planting in the garden. She pointed to a Verbena Bonariensis and said, "that didn't do very well in my garden". She proceeded to add, "roses are also not known to do well here". I planted the Verbena regardless and she of next door has seen that it worked and has since replanted her Verbena.  I am envious that her Verbena has thrived this second time around but mine needed replacing every year.  But I am glad I didn't pay any attention to the roses remark and now have 10 different varieties. One, Glamis Castle isn't doing well because it is susceptible to black spots but I am hopeful it will recover. 

 

Do you grow roses ? I have heard people say that they thought roses are difficult but it really is not. It is a bit of a thug really, you cannot kill it. The pruning advice previously has been quite complicated; finding the outward bud and cutting upward just above it has been shown to be unnecessary. A hedge trimmer works as well...boom, just across by about 1/3 to 2/3.

 

I believe you can pay David Austin a large sum of money to name a rose after you. One day I will be rich (LOL), watch out Rosa Ifa Zainon and she will be peony shaped and yellow. That will be the day.

Beautiful Lavenham

We have often driven past the sign, "Historic Lavenham" but never stopped. We decided to make it our day out destination. It was a very fine April day.  What could be more perfect ? Rows and rows of timber framed Tudor houses in the spring sunshine.

I love taking photos of the houses. I love the contrasting colours, a wonky house wedged in between two straighter ones, some massive, others not so and especially the fact that the houses don't run in a straight line. I wonder if a row of mismatch terrace houses will ever catch on again ? I only wish I didn't have to contend with all the cars parked on the road side.

 

I made a couple of layouts from that day. The first is to record the fact that H always come out to visit places with us and how we enjoy his company. It makes up for the fact that he always decline a meal at a posh diner.

 

 

Next has a couple of photos of houses. I finally got to use my Sizzix die to cut a row of houses out.

 

 

Some close ups of the title area with many layers, featuring Basic Grey Mint Julep.

 

 

Go Ape

Firstly apologies if you don't like spiders!

I have another Go Ape layout to share with you today.  Warning, this is not the last.  The guys were very good and provided me with a lot of wonderful photo opportunities. I loved all the photos I took, even if it was mostly in the pouring rain.

I love the critters printed on the packaging of Basic Grey's Bow Tie collection pack, I had to use it. I wish this was one of the papers in the collection instead of the bugs on green background on Leapfrog. That might be because I like white background though. 

 

I did this layout for Sarah's Cards sketch challenge. Why don't you join us for a chance to win £20 voucher ?

Lunch at Midsummer House

Lunch at another excellent establishment to celebrate J's end of exams ( well, most of it ) prompted me to make this layout about another lunch.

 

A& I took J to lunch at Alimentum last week. I love this place.  I said so to A, "because it is not pretentious", I added.  A disagreed.  He prefers Midsummer House, again because he thought it is not pretentious.  He loves the fact that you eat in the large conservatory of a house...very informal he says.  He has a point.  And you can see The Chef cooking, through a large window into the kitchen...that could have been a serving hatch in another household LOL. We've been to some special places to eat but never before has the chef cooked for us.  He even replaced one of the dishes for us due to dietary requirements. Special, who ? Moi ?

 

As was at Alimentum, lunch at Midsummer House was for three.  H elected not to accompany us.  He'd rather stay at home and eat beans on toast. It was a shame because on this occasion, we were celebrating our wedding anniversary. I asked a waitress if it will be ok to take a photo of a dish.  She said, of course and even offered to take a photo of us.

 

I did this layout for a post on Sarah's Cards. I went very white with a lot of die cut hearts as the base of the layout before adding splashes of colour.

 

This is the finished layout.  It was difficult to photograph...

 



That Swap of Very Small Things...

My packet of Very Small Things arrived this week, courtesy of the gorgeous Jen Hart.  I think she picked up that I like turquoise and this is what she sent me.

She even made a cute box and matching card to go with my gift. I can't wait to use my new supply.  Oops, actually, Jen, I've used all the star wood veneer already. Thank you lovely Sian for organising this swap.

Reminiscing Kenya - High in the Trees at Treetop

When the gallery call "Animals" for Scrap365 went out, I knew I would like to use some photos from our Kenyan safari. I went through a period of producing a large number of layouts from our trip soon after we came back. It is nice to return to the unused photos and reminisce about this trip several years later. The additional benefit is I get to used a brand new range of products.

This is the layout that featured in The Magazine this month.

 I love that animal print background...even if it is a little wild.

BadgeIt Badges

I took my BadgeIt machine to The Retreat to make some badges in class. Unfortunately, the BadgeIt is intended for the toy market and did not stand up to heavy use in class, what with the heavy MME patterned paper we were using.

Sarah very kindly replaced my machine and now I am more cautious as to what I stick through my machine.  Actually, I was so cautious I have not made any badges since The Retreat LOL until I saw a mention of it on Facebook by Debbie and Ruth {hello wave}.

I pulled out my machine and made these "Birdie" badges. 

I was so cautious, I grabbed some graph papers from J for the base of the badges. I started by typing up some "bird" text before stamping a little bird. What do you think ? Quite a restraint and neutral look for me ? 

What badges have you made ?  I would love to see.