GLORY BEE!

Have you ever savored a smidgen of fresh raw scrumptious  honey?  You have not lived until you do. It is as it sounds....divine! With the question asked, I will now unfold to your understanding the marvelous excursion we made to the "local" bee farm only a couple hours away.  We were all excited and if I may say a bit nervous.  Being in close proximity with swarms of bees did not seem to be the most relaxing of activities.  However, with high hopes and and of course a little wad of cash we made our way to the M.V.T. Bee Farm.

We pulled up and met the head hancho, who was knowledgable and friendly.  Since, he did not know English it was good we had Mani and another FFC staff with us who could translate.  He led us to his hives and as we went I was looking at something else when all of a sudden there I was, shoulder to shoulder with a hive, looking down at the opening, teeming with Italian honey bees.  Surprisingly, it did not bother me in the least, and I could tell that Katie and the others were at ease as well. In fact there reigned a very pleasant feeling about the whole trip.  It was wonderful to be around these inspiring industrious productive creations of God.  His boxes were small because there are few flowers blooming at the moment, which caused him to also feed his bees, but instead giving sugar water he used sugar cane.  I liked the more natural way.    

He opened a couple of boxes and in one of them he showed us the queen who very shy and kept hiding from our curious gaze.  We also saw all the useless drones and busy workers working tirelessly.  It was funny and sad that one roly-poly drone, who was bored I guess, flew out of the box. I did not see or notice until he tired to come back.  Our host had already placed the queen excluder screen on top.  We was so fat that he could not pass through the screen so he went to the door.  In this picture he is stuck in the opening.  He could not get through no matter how hard he tried.  When he finally escaped from his tight situation he started flying around the box and I eventually lost track of him.  Never get so fat that you cannot pass through your own door. 

Not only did we enjoy the company of the bees, and  by the way no one was stung, but we sampled the honey and toured around his place.  There was a lot to see and learn.

He also makes his own boxes and equipment which we uses and sells. Like this nifty smoker. If you think only humans have problem with smoking try being a bee for a while.  Ignorant honey fans, like us, that desire to start their own hive of honey makers, can buy everything necessary from him.  (Remember that for future reference).  

Remember that little wad of money, well it sure came in handy.  We bought a few pounds of precious raw honey.  However, the honey is much sweeter and runnier than the honey we buy at home. To say the least we were overly hyper-excited to have something to sweeten our lives again.

Precious as this honey may be, it is imperative to separate the honey for the comb.  (To tell the truth this really is necessary, for though the honey is sweeter here, the comb is painfully bland and unpleasant to swallow). That is where this machine comes in handy.  Using the centrifugal force created by the manual power of the hand and arm and enhanced by a simple gear system, the honey is easily extracted and collected.  

But here let me introduce the real honey extractor.  I thrilled over every opportunity he gave us to sample the delectable honey.  Once he let us eat from the comb he pulled from the hive. Again from an old frame in storage that still had remnants of honey in it. Then, at the end he graciously blessed us with several pieces of honeycomb saturated with beautiful rich honey. You could say Katie, Mani, and I were in heaven coming home.  We all have that good feeling (really good feeling) and I am pretty confident in saying that we will proceed to do our own bee hive.  The moral of the experience is when you feel good inside, right about where your stomach is, than that must be the right thing to do.  I could leave it at that, but I think it would be better to say; Good things never come free, we must work for them.  Just like the lazy drone met his fate, and we got the blessings of all the hard work of ours, and theirs!

This is David your Post Host...so "bee" alert for my next post, because you never know when I will post again.

food...Food...FOOD!

Considering the breath, depth, and extent of the importance of food in the life of every human being, it only made sense to discuss this topic from our point of view from inside the Indian culture which surrounds us.
To begin let us survey the Indian cuisine.   They brew up all sorts of incinerating sauces and curries that all but kill those not already burned out and accustomed to such fiery food.
Look at the concerned expression on the faces of these boys, about to partake of good plain rice garnished with a blaze of fire. In spite of the fiery challenge the food creates, I and the other non spice lovers have found and we enjoy certain dishes that amazingly are not hot.  And yes, we like all the other Indians eat with our hands. It really is quite fun (and saves on washing). Now to continue!
During the elapse in time from Katie's last visit to India we have made significant changes in our choice of foods we consume.  Now, we stay with whole foods, nothing processed, refined, and definitely not GMOed. Simple enough, but that includes flours, refined white sugar, and most cooking oils.  With that, out the door goes many of the none spicy foods.  Then we try to stay away from anything that has been cooked to death and there went out all the other dishes made in India except for two that I know of, pepper water and a spicy sauce called chutney.  Checkmate! After a few days of vacillating and eating some dead and spicy foods I decided enough was enough and I had had enough.  I promptly promoted myself to chef.  I do not know which is worse eating spicy food or my food!  Nevertheless, I have enjoyed making good plain bland healthy food.  Poor Katie she loves spicy food, but no problem she always  manages to get pepper water or chutney to eat.

Trying different things we have found red rice to be the best, and we are always eating vegetables like potatoes, cauliflower, onions, garlic, carrots, and Katie finally bought some spices (I do not know if she is trying to hint at something) which I use sparingly.  The best part is the fruit.  Papaya and pomegranate are in the peak and I savor each juicy bite.  Life is not too bad if you ask me.

I have rarely made food and almost never without a recipe, now I always make food and almost never with a recipe.  Good example, is when I tried to make a stir fry and because I used potatoes it transformed into something...I guess it looked like funeral potatoes (the yellow stuff in the preceding photo).  Maybe I wont use potatoes next time. Another thing which now makes me appreciate my dedicated mother even more, is the tremendous amount of time it takes to cook beans or anything without killing them.  It took me 2+ hours to make a simple soup! Then there was the time I heroically threw in some spices into my fried rice in an attempt to make something comparable to Indian food.  While I scorching my throat on this substance I had produced, I asked Katie what she though.  Would you believe it she did not know I had put spices in it at all?  Is it just me or do I have a hypersensitive problem?
That is beginning of our culinary adventures.  What would a story be without a moral.  Here it is.  If you hate hot food  learn to love it immediately or you might end up in India or some place worse!  Okay, maybe it could go something like this, do not twiddle your thumbs and eloquently complain waiting for your situation to change, but get up, buck up and do something about it (especially if your stomach is forcefully motivating you to do something)! How is that for a moral?

Thanks again! This is David your Post Host, and I hope that next time you are at Staples buy some Post-its because you never know when I might post again.

Coconuts? Are You Nuts?

  There is a new craze that has overtaken our experiments with herbal medicine! Coconuts...the new  miracle food and medicine (new? well I guess it has been around for a long time).  During our stay in Utah before coming out to India we ate at a live foods restaurant with an herb shop in it.  In this herb shop was a harmless looking book called Coconut Cures by Bruce Fife. We looked at each other and thought, well we are going to the land of coconuts, this might be helpful. I was not too excited because I never liked coconuts, but Katie up and bought it.  As we skimmed though it the author was going on and on about how coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut water, etc sometimes alone or mixed with other things will cure just about anything.  It kills parasites, rejuvenates the blood, cures diseases, strengthens the immune system, heals terrible burns, and innumerable other amazing things. It seems that coconuts can do just about anything.
   As Katie is the doctor guess who is the guinea pig.  ME! Yipes, and I do not like coconuts! So far I have used it on my head to cure my dandruff and it seems to be working.  Good! Then there was a coconut oil three day cleanse that is supposed to kill candida (yeast growth in the stomach), detox the digestive system, and help it to function properly.  I did that and well I am still not sure if it worked after taking only coconut oil and water for a couple days I was pretty wiped out. Now that it is over I kind of feel the same as before.  Who knows! Then Mani also became a guinea pig on the parasite purge program.  Coconut oil and dried coconuts for him, though it was only for a couple of days.  He just made the mistake of trying to take the daily dosage of oil all at one time.  That kind of burned him out, and he could not face coconut oil again.  However, it worked for him and he was able to clean out some of those unwanted pests.  Luckily for us that is as far as we have gone so far. Except for Katie is trying coconut oil on her ringworm, and we have yet to see the results.
   That is not where coconuts stop! No, coconuts do not stop! For lack of better materials I used a coconut leaf to construct a rake of sorts.

  We are really going to have to find a new hobby.  Just to speak optimistically the rake did not last long to long to say the very least.  You may be just as "concerned" as we are to see what else these little medicinal bombs that fall from heaven can do.  But that will have to be saved for a different day, different story as we are fresh out of info (even if we cannot seem to rid of these coconuts).  I wonder why it is called a nut, we should be called nuts for taking them!  Thankfully we can now proceed to the moral of this story, which is; never trust your doctor if he is holding a coconut.  Not bad but not good either.  Here it goes...if you never dive into something without getting some idea of what it is (at least make sure it is not coconut oil...heehee).

 Just in case you forgot this is David, your Post Host. Coconut trees are also good for posting things on, and you never know when I will post again.