We're all going on a summer holiday...

Just stopping in here briefly  to say that some of us are on holiday, and some of us are working, but we are sharing it round. Aiming to finish my job list in the vineyard tomorrow, and then I'll be able to pay some much needed attention to rest of the garden. In the meantime I thought I'd leave you with a photo of items waiting to be packed for the beach house. We normally take our standard 'own' supplies - eggs, wine, honey, olive oil, as well as picking as much garden produce as ready, but this is the first year we took a bunch of bananas.

They were then hung up the garage, which proved to be quite a hot place so they all ripened at once, which necessitated the making of banana cakes, and even a banoffee pie (thanks C & K). Rainy days are good for baking, especially when you are on holiday.

Christmas Beekeeping Float

Here's a family photo that you may never see the likes of again. Our family entry into our annal Christmas parade no less. The local parade was a little short on entries so we cobbled together this 'beekeeping entry'. Melina dressed in her bee costume, and waved to the crowds very cutely, Alex held the smoker, Mike drove the tractor (this is our wee vineyard tractor), and I walked alongside making sure the (empty) beehive didn't fall off.

And we won second prize!

And here is the first honey harvest of the season - just a small amount of honeycomb, scraped from the bottom of a 'spacer' box where I didn't want them building comb. The children were fascinated by the concept of eating wax, with Melina wondering about the possibilities of candles and crayons...

Welcome Bees

My two replenished hives have been sitting in the garden for just over a week, so I opened them up to see if all was well and the new queens were laying eggs. I was a little nervous, as I hadn't dealt with bees for a while, but it was fine, the bees were fine, and they made me happy.

Here's a typical brood frame - that's honey in the cells in the top right, 'capped' brood cells in the middle, where the larvae are pupating into bees,  and the brightly coloured orange and yellow cells near the bottom left are full of pollen.

Here's some eggs. Queen Bee has been here recently. On a good day a queen can lay up to 2000 eggs, more than her own body weight.  I'm not entirely sure how that is possible.

Here's some eggs that have hatched into larvae. They will be between 3 and 9 days old, and are being fed by the worker bees.

This is one of my favourite bee activities to see - the freshly made honeycomb. They make wax from special wax glands and build it into these precise hexagonal shapes. I don't know how they do that either.

One of the hives had been very busy, so I added another box for them to expand in to. And then I nearly managed to bung up the shutter button of the camera with propolis, so I decided that that was enough for the day.

A wee update

 

I've been feeling a little frustrated about how much needs to be done in the garden, and not being able to get out there as much as I want to. But after the kids were in bed tonight I had a lovely hour digging over a small patch in the vege garden.

 

There has been lots of honey bees in the garden, the peach tree was humming when it was in full blossom. A little sad that they weren't mine, rather I think they are from my neighbours who have had a couple of hives put on their property. BUT I am taking delivery of a couple of new starter hives in a couple of days and I am very excited about that.

I've been enjoying these granny bonnets which have been flowering for the past couple of weeks. I grew them from seed last year and it is the first time they have flowered. They are planted in my cutting garden, and do last a long time in the vase. I'd like to grow some more different types.

And now back to the garden

I have been spending some long awaited time in the garden over the past couple of weeks, and have been enjoying it very much. Am also keen to spend some time back on the blog, but don't want to exert myself too much, so to get back gently into it, here are some springtime photos from around the garden. I think it's my favourite season.

 Still my favourite flower - the first sweet peas of the season.

 Almond blossom, always the first in the orchard to flower. Have yet to get any actual almonds off these though.

 It's the first year of picking my asparagus bed! And it's true what they say, freshly picked asparagus is amazing. You can eat it raw, it is very sweet and tender. The kids have been gobbling it up lightly steamed and salted. Unfortunately the pukeko also have a taste for it, so I may  need to net it. And it looks like my little bed is definitely not big enough. I'm thinking asparagus may get some more space of it's own in my garden expansion plans....

 Self sown borage is flowering prolifically at the moment. 

 Dwarf kowhai trees planted in the food forest are blooming. I can however suggest that you don't try transplanting these. I tried this couple of months ago, with one that was in the way of my new path and it is now Very Dead. Planning my paths before I planted may have been advisable.

 I only have a tiny patch of peas at the moment, about a foot square, but it is being frequently raided, and much appreciated. Need to plant more peas.

And finally, the sunsets seem to always be lovely at this time of year. Melina is enjoying taking photos of them so I have loads of fuzzy pink to delete.

Mt Yasur

Apologies for being away so long. Although I just checked blog stats and it appears I get the same amount of hits whether I'm posting or not.

I have been slowly but surely managing to spend more time in the garden, and with a little bit of help it feels like it's getting back under control. It helps that the weather is perfectly springlike at the moment, with sun and the soil lovely and moist. We haven't actually had decent rain in a while so am wantingto get mulch on all the beds before it dries out anymore, in case we have a dry spring like last year.

But! I haven't finished with Vanuatu yet. The next photos are not gardening/food related at all, but was my highlight of our trip to Vanuatu. To stand on the edge of a live volcano has been on 'the list' for me, so we made the extra trip out to Tanna Island, which has Mt Yasur. Mt Yasur is one of the most consistently active, and accessible volcanos in the world.

This was our first view of Mt Yasur, as we drove to Port Resolution where we were staying.

With the local children playing soccer on the ash plain.

The local utes can drive up the other side of the mountain, to within about 150m of the top. Here's Alex on the path to the crater. Afterwards, as we were waiting in our ute for the last person to come down the mountain some lava 'bombs' about the size of a moon hopper landed on this path. I was glad the children were in the ute then. To put it mildly.

 

We arrived on dusk, as it is most spectacular when it gets dark. The first time it rumbled and sent up clouds of ash and lava when we were standing on the crater made my heart beat very fast. It was erupting every 2-5 minutes.

Here's the family watching (with a random stranger), Mike looking slightly worried.

As it got dark it became more spectacular. Shortly after this they decided it was safe enough to go closer (!) and let us look right down into the crater where you could see the lava boiling up. Then there were a couple of bigger explosions and I took several involuntary steps backwards and the guides started shouting for everyone to go back. 

Highly highly reccommended. An experience that is truly Awesome. If not exactly safe. I'm very grateful that the children did not get hurt. You would certainly not be allowed anywhere near something like this in NZ. 

Alex gave a talk to his class on the volcano when we got back. I'm not sure what he said, or how he said it, but for several weeks afterwards I had parents telling me that their children had been requesting a trip to Vanuatu.

A walk around Taloa Village

 I'm typing one handed, so captions may be brief. 

Alex trying out the village pump. They seemed to use rainwater for drinking and used these pumps for all other water. These pumps were in other villages too - usually labelled by the aid project that had provided them.

 Children peeking out of their classroom. 

The main church. Presbyterian.

 Missionary graveyard, surrounded by cosmos. Apart from some tropical flowers which I do not know the name of, the two flowers that were grown in Vanuatu were orange and yellow cosmos, and pink zinnias.

 Mike quizzing the school children with maths questions. They thought it was hilarious.

 Nakamal. The village was very proud of this.  It was recently re-built, using tradtional construction methods. It took a couple of years, using the Tuesday villages working bees. I did liked the concept of a weekly community working bee (and one imagined it was compulsory). I wondered if this was instigated by the missionaries here? The nakamal is a place where the men gather to drink kava, but this one also seemed to be used frequently for community meetings and celebrations - rather like a marae.

 Inside roof of nakamal. All bound together using pandanus palm. 

 Drum, hollowed out tree log, used to summon villagers to meetings, also to pass along messages between villages. 

Although nowadays they find the dive tank cylinder more effective.

 Pineapples growing underneath the banana palms.

 Mural on the wall of school. I particularly liked the kissy lips.