Rainy Days And Marmalade

We've come into a patch of what's called 'winter weather' here on the Wet Coast, meaning that it's been raining - most days, all day, for several weeks.  Can't complain too much - we don't have to shovel it! We were lucky to have a few scattered dry days spread out over the month - the New Year's bonfire at the neighbors' house would have been considerably less comfortable while sitting in the wet.  As it was, we merely had to stand up occasionally to switch from burning our shins to thawing our backsides.....

It also meant that it was high time to find some organic citrus, settle in for a few hours, and get back to a family tradition that began some years ago.  While my dad's favorite preserve was Black Currant jam, for which fruit I searched the Farmers Markets and eventually began an annual pilgrimage to a local U-Pick (and which we eventually began to grow for ourselves), my mother settled firmly into an appreciation of a 3-Citrus Marmalade that I made once, on a whim.  Not the Apple Butter, gently spiced and cooked down from our own apples, or chunky Strawberry Jam, bright with the taste of summer in our back yard. Nope - a recipe that most marmalade makers would call cheating (you used boxed pectin - gasp!), from imported, tropical fruit.  Oh well, after all, we've made Durian Jam for the Malaysian side of the family from frozen fruit shipped across the planet. I'm sure the neighbors wondered what the heck that smell was, but it tasted quite good.

So, with a fire in the woodstove, armed with vegetable peelers, a sharp knife, some grapefruit, lemons, oranges, and TV shows on the iPad, I set about peeling and dicing the rind.

While I had all of that citrus on hand, I sliced up some organic Meyer lemons and covered them with a few spoonfuls of our honey - for a Vitamin C boost to add to my morning tea.

I like to use red grapefruit in the mixed marmalade with lemons and oranges, because the added color makes for a prettier finished product.

Of course, while I was buying all of that citrus, I may have overestimated what I needed - so I waded through my preserving books, and  saddled myself with the extra work of making a Grapefruit Marmalade....

and a Lemon Lime Marmalade. Both were more traditionally steeped overnight, the Lemon Lime including the seeds (in the tea ball) and the whole fruits, thinly sliced, making for a sharp, bitter tang in the finished preserve.

The finished product: 3-Citrus, Ruby Grapefruit, and Lemon Lime Marmalade. 

Bittersweet

I was out examining our remaining colony of bees today, since the clouds ran out of rain and the weather changed to cold and misty. There are still a significant number of cranky girls in residence, so I again left them alone for a clearer day with better light, and a chance to do an inspection in my veil with another set of hands. There is still the possibility that I missed a queen in residence, so I will make very certain I know what's going on in the hive before I decide what to do next.

The comb that had been accumulating in the kitchen was partially dealt with over the holiday slowdown, and I cut out just the parts of comb that were completely capped - signifying finished honey that won't spoil or ferment in storage. I then broke that comb down to put through my very basic honey extractor.  The usual method for honey extraction when you're keeping a top bar hive is called 'crush and strain,' which is a very apt term.

In the kitchen, I separated out only the comb that contained capped honey - the remainder of the wax, and the top bars were put to the side.

With some patience and my large potato masher, I made sure that I broke up the capped cells, reducing the wax and honey to a mixture that could be strained through the three grades of mesh that came with my handy-dandy crush and strain contraption. 

Yep, a food-grade bucket with a 'honey gate.' Don't worry - it wasn't expensive!

With the help of the heat from the woodstove, and lots of towels and newspaper to catch any spills, I slowly added the mashed mixture to the first of three sieves, scooping out the spent wax that remained between additions, and we patiently waited.

In the end, things got quite sticky, but it smelled wonderful while I was working, and after a couple of days we were able to cover more surfaces with towels and gather our small harvest of honey.  

The wax itself will be rinsed outside to make sure we don't add wax debris to our plumbing, then melted several times in water, to allow me to remove as much debris as possible. Finally, I'll strain it through cheesecloth or an old t-shirt into the waxed milk cartons we've been collecting. The cartons can simply be torn off the cubes of pure, cooled, solid beeswax in the end, and the wax can be used to make candles and salves in the future.

Orchard Work

We've been slowly continuing our work in the orchard, as the rain allows, and as leaf collection and rabbitry cleaning provide us with mulching material. Around the large Bing cherry tree, we've filled in the branches and garden debris with topsoil, planted black currant and gooseberry bushes we propagated in preparation for the move, and scattered snowdrop and daffodil bulbs where they'll get early spring light. Everything was covered with a good helping of bark mulch. Wayward deer, whose path goes clearly through and beyond the orchard trees, have been exploring and making a bit of a mess around the edges.....

The fruit bushes were spaced out in their pots before planting, to make sure they wouldn't be in deep shade, or close enough to encourage pests to congregate.

Some of the newly planted trees are now surrounded with their own hugels of compost, branches, soil, and mulch.  I'm  intending to plant divisions of horseradish under the 2 new cherry trees. which is supposed to be a good permaculture guild match. 

We'll finish up around the trees as the yard and animal clean up continues, taking things one day at a time.  In the background, you can see we've built another compost area, to allow us to collect debris from the orchard.  In the future, I plan to plant some comfrey in my composting areas, to encourage cutting of leaves to add to the layering process.

 The piles are still impressive, but we're working our way through our soil and mulch. Adrian was on wheelbarrow duty today, while I was laying down the last of the cardboard and tidying up the fallen leaves.