Thursday, July 26, 2007

Purple Honey and the Frog in the Frying Pan



This is our wonderful, exotic, rare and extra super yummy Purple Honey!!! We had never heard of purple honey and initially wondered if something terrible was wrong with our bees. Now that we have had time to research the matter and (most importantly) taste the honey we're only sorry that there isn't more of it!! This is by far my favorite honey ever, it has such a smooth taste and a sweetness that I've never had in honey of any kind in any of the places I've ever had honey. Being a lifelong honey consumer I've developed quite a taste for certain types of honey but now I believe I'm ruined..... there just aren't any that taste like this stuff.


It took us quite awhile to figure out what is going on with our honey and the truth of the matter is that no one really knows for sure. There are several theories as to what it is that is causing it but regardless of what the correct theory is it is very rare and only occurs in this little part of the world where I live. The kids and I just feel so blessed that after all the studying and working and heartbreaks we have had with the bees and all of the things we know we have yet to go through in our first year we were given such a special experience as our purple honey.


I haven't posted in awhile, and this post is going to be too short to catch anyone up on life around here. As usual; lately I'm feeling a little like a frog in a frying pan. There just always seems to be too much going on for me to stay in any one place very long and as a result everything is either waiting to be done, be started or is half done and waiting to be finished. I start and end every day at a dead out run and still only get a tiny portion of what I need to do for my family finished! It's kind of discouraging to work so hard and see so little progress ya know? It's not like I'm sleeping in and sitting around doing nothing, I'm up no later than 6:30 and it's usually closer to 5 or 5:30. I don't get to bed until 11:30 or 12 and most often it's 12:30 or 1 before my head hits the pillow.


We are schooling every day that we can just trying to get all caught up and in that process do what we need to do for this year's schooling. (shhh, don't tell but the kids still haven't taken their yearly tests) I sometimes catch myself wishing that schooling was still like it was when the kids were in the lower grades and it could all be done in the car while going down the road or at home in 45 minutes a day. The reality is that upper middle grades and high school just take more time and it has to be time without distractions. We usually get all sorts of distractions plus the one day a week that we set aside for errands and library runs so we are doing good if we get two full days of school crammed into our week right now. The kids are even getting grumpy that we aren't spending enough time in school!!!


We work in the garden for about an hour every morning... well, not just the garden. More like the garden, the dogs, the doves, the chickens and picking up around the yard. Then there's the bees. We lost Jared's hive after letting ourselves get tricked into thinking they were out of the woods and that was all it took to determine to be more diligent in taking care of the bees. This time of year a good beekeeper should most likely be checking on the bees at least every 2-3 weeks and in a hive that has had any problems at all it should be 1-2 weeks or 7-10 days. Well, all of our hives have either had problems or been split to aid ailing hives so we should be in the hives at least every week and a half for now..... Jared's hive died after we had not been in it for lack of time in over 3 weeks.
We are still fighting the flea battle, but I have come to the conclusion that I may do better in my efforts to kill the fleas by hurling all of my hunk o honey's paycheck directly at them rather than tossing it into the flea "killing" sprays and powders that are only accomplishing giving me a headache and taking up my grocery budget.
There are plenty of great and wonderful things going on around here too though. The bees made us some purple honey, the garden is giving us lots of squash and beans and some tomatoes and cucumbers and a watermelon a few peppers and a cantelope. I'm sure it would have done more if I had taken better care of it but you know .... I'm the frog in the frying pan so the garden is full of weeds now, and bugs and some kind of blight killing off my plants.
Anyway, the kids are trying to decide whether or not to sell any of their purple honey and how much to charge for it if they do. I'm trying my best to just keep up but I always feel like I'm only falling further behind. And now I'm late starting supper so that we can make it to a revival meeting on time tonight!!! See ya.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

from a book i read, the purple honey is caused by bees sucking on elderberries.

Meredith Englund said...

aw that was from the secret life of bees. i love that book. thats actually what just made me look up purple honey. i want some.

Anonymous said...

Yup, It was from The Secret Life of the Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I also love that book. And same here, its also what made me look up purple honey. xP

Jeannie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeannie said...

http://jeanniet.blogspot.com/2009/06/purple-honey-its-for-real.html

A new post that is more up to date about the purple honey and hopefully will answer your questions. Please feel free to ask away if it doesn't.
Jeannie

Mary said...

we too have purple honey harvested in july in NC

Cassie said...

Jeannie,
I am very interested in your purple honey. I tried to visit your blog about it but was unable. I have been searching for a place to buy purple honey but without success, it is indeed rare! If you or anyone has any suggestions I would be greatful:)
Thank you and God bless!
Cassie

Cassandraeharris@yahoo.com