Day 289, Year 7: Tomatoes and Bees
Date: Thursday, August 23, 2012
Weather: Another Beautiful Day
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
It was another beautiful day here on the Cape. We should have been at the
beach or out sailing, but instead, our focus today was on tomatoes and bees.
We didn’t intend for the bees to be a focus of attention, but mid-afternoon
while we were at Heather’s, I head Heather exclaiming that the bees had gone
crazy. I looked out in the front yard and all I could see were bees, bees,
and more bees buzzing about in all directions. Brian, the next door
neighbor was out on his riding lawn mower and was near the bee hive. I
yelled for Heather to go tell him to evacuate the area and while she was
outside, I watched the bees swarm into a cloud, and fly away. It was an
amazing thing to watch but it happened so fast that none of us thought to go
grab a camera. Sam and Jonah were asleep, so they didn’t get to watch this.
We thought things were going so great with the hive, and Sam had declared
yesterday that he was going to start a business next summer selling herbs
and honey. He and his parents had even come up with a name-Goldpebble
Gardens. He might still realize his little dream, but we are going to have
to figure out what to do about the bee hive. The queen is gone with about
60 per cent of the worker bees. We think Heather will have to wait until
next spring to get another queen, but we’re not sure about that. So more
research must be done to figure out the best way to keep the bees she still
has happy for the winter and how to restore the queen and bees that ‘flew
the coup.’
Heather had a meeting at work this morning, so Jed and Mark took Sam and
Jonah to the aquarium in Woods Hole while I took Oliver for a stroll. It
was great seeing the three boys after their week away. Absence makes the
heart grow fonder, and we really missed those little guys. Sam was wearing
a new pair of red suede shoes he bought in a Maine Outlet Mall on the way
home yesterday. He really wanted the red shoes for his first day of
kindergarten and we know he will make a definite impression! Both of the
big boys had a great week with their Papa and Grammy in Maine, and I’m sure
Oliver did as well, but unfortunately he didn’t sleep much. So Heather is
exhausted and not sure she ever wants to go on vacation again-at least not
until the boys are old enough to handle traveling without it disrupting
their sleep habits. This morning, Oliver slept for about an hour as I
walked around Woods Hole with him in the stroller, but when he woke up he
wanted mommy. It was time to eat. I took my cell phone out of my pocket
and tried to call Jed, then Mark, and then Heather, none of which I could
reach. I finally realized that the problem was my phone. It’s a phone I
bought in Puerto Rico at a Radio Shack. I have a GoPlan (pay as you go)
with AT&T but I have to put more money in it each month or I lose the
service. I keep about $40 dollars of credit in the phone and then put in
just a few dollars near the end of each month. Evidently I missed the date
for adding a bit into the phone and as a result, lost everything. We’ll go
to an AT&T shop tomorrow and figure out how I can keep the phone going. In
the meantime, we will rely on Mark’s phone.
Now about the tomatoes. When Heather’s meeting was over, we all headed back
to Falmouth. We stopped at the weekly Farmer’s Market to buy food and
picked up another 20 pounds of tomatoes to turn into spaghetti sauce. I
spent the rest of my day cooking down the huge pot of pureed tomatoes that I
processed yesterday and getting those canned. The tomatoes we bought today
were not quite ripe, so we will wait until Saturday to process those. We
stayed at Heather and Jed’s for dinner and enjoyed some of the fresh tomato
marinara sauce over delicious ravioli that Heather bought at the Market
today. The ravioli was locally made with local goat cheese and locally made
pasta. It taught me a lesson about pasta. Ravioli is not just ravioli.
This was truly delicious and having the marinara sauce made from fresh
tomatoes just added to the wonderful tastes. Heather also made a fantastic
salad with arugula, salad greens, grated carrot, and diced ginger. And we
had super long, super thin green beans from Grammy Marti’s garden in
Maine–totally yummy and all locally grown. Yeah! The 35 pounds of
tomatoes we bought yesterday ended up making five quarts and four pints of
sauce. We ate one quart and pressure canned the rest. It is a lot of work,
but totally worth it. The tomatoes we bought today need a day to fully
ripen, so Saturday will be our next totally tomato day.