fixed it myself~!

HEY – A Quiet moment can produce wondrous results…
I was a lucky shopper at a recent Healdsburg Estate sale & carried out a genuine 1955 Kitchen Aid – Model 3C. It is a beauty & an almost solid metal appliance – made to whip cream, beat eggs, mix cake batter, even make mayonnaise – back in the day when things were built to last forever.
After cleaning it up & admiring it on my vintage kitchen counter, we got around to using it for some whipped cream. The first few moments of service seemed as I remembered just before I put my money down in that original kitchen in Healdsburg …a nice starter speed, then speeding up as I took the dial to a higher setting. We turned it off, added some honey & vanilla – & then it just didn’t act right! The speed seemed variable & unrelated to the setting…oh, darn! Had I just bought yet another thing destined for the landfill? Hmm, maybe I could start a restaurant & put this in the window? Maybe Laurel will do the bakery & SHE can put it in the window?…Thoughts running rampant – until the next day – I took a quiet moment & instead of cleaning, gardening, reading email – I did a thing unusual for me – I decided to try & fix the darn thing!

Turns out it has a nice & tidy simple screw that allows you to open the beater mechanism – which was simply a simple hollow area surrounded by a cog & filled with wadding, some really OLD black grease & a heck of a lot of old cake batter!
A few moments later after dropping the important & irreplaceable screw thingie only once before containing it into a jar lid – I proceeded to clean the area out, apply sewing machine oil to all moving parts & then – deciding for expert advice – I called RJ for some thick grease. Turns out most guys have a grease gun around just for such uses…imagine that!  The next day it was brought over & together we determined how much grease to put into the fairly clean wadding, (no, I didn’t change the wadding although it looked vaguely familiar but was not really on my list of things to shop for right now) into the hollow areas plus a little onto the cogs in both parts of the machine works. A few minutes later I was back in business with the Kitchen Aid humming properly at every speed. Now, that is a story that needs to be repeated…
1- I did it almost by myself – using woman’s intuition & a lifetime of some experience with small machines (sewing machine, bike)
2- This older model appliance is made of parts intended to be serviced!  That is the real lesson of this tale – we need to find ways to make things again that aren’t meant to be dumped in a year & a day…
3- And…always good to have a grease gun around with some nice fresh light colored real good grease.
4- Must take quiet moments to make life happier & relieve upsets over small things…
5- Got to bake more, or get right person to bake using old yet happily working mixer appliance.
6- Keep RJ around for grease & other great reasons…

See ya in the kitchen,
Annie

The Vanishing Bees

THE VANISHING BEES

From the dawn of human society, the nature and origin of the honeybee has awakened the curiosity and interest of man. For the past five million years, this furry insect has been a creature of special sanctity, representing many things such as the human soul, industry, cooperation and the sacred feminine. Our relationship with bees also denotes the most ancient form of agriculture. Pre-historic petroglyphs depict women on honey hunts and Ancient Egyptian farmers floated beehives on rafts down the Nile to pollinate their crops.

And yet today, we live in a state of disconnect. The average consumer has no idea where things originally come from, not even something as vital as our food. They think edibles come naturally shrink-wrapped on a shelf and that the bees are merely stinging insects that make honey, when in fact these prime pollinators are responsible for one third of the food we eat, including most of the fruits, vegetables, nuts and even alfalfa used to feed livestock. In America, this amounts to about $18 billion in annual sales.

Imagine half a million adults skipping town and leaving their children behind. Picture an opened suitcase filled with bundles of cash at a bus stop and yet no robber wants to snatch it. The apiary science mystery known as “Colony Collapse Disorder” displays these very symptoms. Not only do the bees abandon their hive, but the queen and the brood as well. Unnatural. Unheard of. Even the predators that usually raid the hive for honey stay far away. At first, this occurrence sounds like an urban legend or an exaggerated tale. Except it’s not. The situation is both dire and all too real. Bees are disappearing all over the planet and no one knows why.

CCD – Colony Collapse Disorder…what is it?  It is disappearing hives, not just dead bees…but, what causes it?  Is it from the habits of commercial beekeepers & the overuse of agricultural chemicals?  If so – why does a thriving hive in a backyard in our area – with no ag & no hive stress suddenly experience this…

A new movie is addressing this pressing subject – in a very engaging way too!

Scroll down for  trailer of “The Vanishing Bees”

Here is one story…from my Bee Journal…

June 13^th 2010 – Seasonal Hive Checks

I was making the rounds that day of our hives…and, eerily got a call…

David Partch’s hive is dead – gone – disappeared!  A thriving colony reduced to several frames of comb with bits if pollen & some uncapped nectar.  How weird.  Was it the cold, rainy spring – they ate everything & then starved to death?  If so – wouldn’t there be bodies in the hive? Is that hive the “swarm” that was caught in my neighbor’s yard, not so unlikely – only a couple of blocks away.   The hive was a stack of ready frames, about 20 frames showing comb development, many with pollen stores, some uncapped nectar, the bottom deep box & first shallow box had been brood chamber for awhile – well developed black comb with lots of old cocoons, pollen & yet – now – with a spotty brood pattern of only a few dozen capped cells, & no queen cells.

By the time I saw it today – the wax moths are already at work in one section.  Partch puts the exodus at after May 31^st, last time they can remember seeing bees making regular forage entrances.  David says he saw lots of fighting around the entrance before then, and it appeared that they were using the top as an entrance also.  Some aggressive behavior toward him as well. .. I have taken the boxes home to expose them or freeze to rid the wax moths, and will create a storage until they are needed or David wants to try again.  Too sad.  I have taken pictures of the odd white stuff I found on several frames, in most boxes.  I thought it was the cappings from the upper boxes, as they were robbed empty.  Will I ever know?

See the movie, I am going to as soon as it is out!

And – here is a word on CCD – a short film from Burt’s Bees…

They are a corporation also wanting to help save the bees!  I think we are all in this together..the bees are collapsing our culture & economy is collapsing…grow borage for the bees & a garden to feed yourself..NOW!

And – if you need more reasons to support the bees & use honey – here is another video (NPR) about honey – as medicine…

Honey is all right with me! In fact, I am going to open a hive this afternoon…hope I see some extra honey… I might just have a taste…
Bee well,
Annie