Next steps; grip-relaxing bimbling, and avoiding the temptations

Spendywendywoo

@Suffolk_lass, just catching up - I’m so glad Mr SL is home and resting well. It must have been quite a scare for you, and although there will be follow ups it sounds like he has good care at the hospital you visited, which is lovely to hear x 

Suffolk_lass

It's good to hear we were not alone in our experience of the local hospital.

Diet (food)
The low-fat regime is underway. I tried making soup by simmering the base of onion, carrot and celery in water, until soft, before adding the main veg and seasonings instead of frying them off in hot oil and to be honest, we couldn't tell the difference so that will be me from now on (cheaper too!) We also talked about yogurt and while I will buy a bit of the set Greek, he will eat a small amount of Greek-style. I don't like that many of the fat free options contain UPF additives, so many things will just go. It is just one of my things about eating chemicals. I have been an avid label reader since DS was a baby and clearly, certain things made him go red around the mouth and his behaviour deteriorate. Tests revealed these were artificial sweeteners and colours.

Anyway, we had some defrosted sea bream fillets with oven chips, (2.8g fat) and steamed carrots, cabbage and cauliflower.  Not the most spectacular meal. I think we will try mash without butter or cream added tonight. I am sure a splodge of semi skimmed milk will be fine. I did invest in 4 pints of it so Mr Sl can have bran flakes for breakfast. Naturally he is having porridge today! (doh). We'll have courgette soup for lunch and minced beef (with onion, tomatoes, breadcrumbs and seasonings) under mash with half a tin of baked beans and steamed cabbage tonight.

Bees
I was making up super frames (these are the honey-box size) to put one in each brood box (the brood box is where we use bigger, deeper frames so the Queen has plenty of room to lay eggs). The idea of a shallow frame in a deep box is that the bees will draw wax underneath the bottom bar, which is normally drone sized, and we can cut it off with the capped larvae as a bio-mechanical control of the Varroa destructor mite. We do this twice in the year and open some of the cells so we can see how heavy the mite infestation is and hence, know whether the bees need further intervention from us. We try to use natural chemicals if we do need to treat, rather than man-made pyrethroids, which have resulted in mite resistance through poor practice and overuse. If we use any chemicals it is thymol, or formic or oxalic acid, or a combination of these.

Anyway, I knew I had some drone foundation (flat wax sheets to give the bees a head start) so up I went to the spare room. I found more than I was expecting. One of our guests had turned on the radiator and omitted to turn it off. That and some ambient temperature increase meant one of the buckets of honey had begun to ferment. It was topped by a layer of cling film as honey is hygroscopic (absorbs moisture from the air) but nevertheless, a right old ooze to clear up. I have decanted some and cleaned it all up. The drone foundation was cut in half and added to the frames and secured by panel pins, and they are in the brood boxes ready to go when there is nectar, and enough young bees to draw it. 

Lots of bees flying and collecting pollen round here, with plenty of crocus, snowdrops and hedgerow catkins to forage this from. This means the queens in those colonies are laying and the pollen is the protein-rich source of food for the larvae.

Money
I appear to have won nothing this month in the PB draw.

I might buy a ticket for the lottery though, as I think I left my £60 winnings in there from Christmas Eve! Mr Sl reminded me when the £104m jackpot on Friday advert came on last night. Apparently it is my turn!

Grocery spending is under control but I will need to shop so the chosen spread appears. Not sure if we are still going up to My Mum's this month, but I think we should, as she won't be here forever and we haven't seen her since the end of September. It does mean the shop has reduced a bit and I'm sure I can trim more off it.

in_need_of_direction

PB results aren’t in until tomorrow (or 1 min after midnight if you’re like me). There could still be a nice surprise for you.

Suffolk_lass

Ooh, thank you @in_need_of_direction. I didn't know that

trix-a-belle

Re oven chips, something I have learned to pay attention to on them recently is dextrose type additions to help browning but severely impact the actual potato percentage which i'm sure is relevant to Mr SLs diet. They clip I saw found the best for limited additives had 96-98% potato, lots of others were low 90s or even in the 80s percent potato due to amount of coatings. I'd never even considered that

edinburgher

I am truly glad to hear that Mr SL is home, although sorry about the diet!

Your February savings total was cracking, it is incredible how all the little things can add up to something quite significant At the risk of making it feel too much like a job, have you ever given any thought to trying to find local shops/delis that might sell your honey? We have a guy doing similar in the South of Glasgow and they seem to have carved out a good wee niche in our local delis/greengrocers/organic/no waste shops.

Suffolk_lass

Good points; both of you! I am off to check the oven chips bag right now... 96% potato plus a combination of rape seed and sunflower oil. Nothing else. Phew.

Selling honey
I have been into all the local Garden Centres but they are all served by either one or another local Bee Farmer. The same with cafes, shops and delis & also markets. Even the butcher's. I don't buy other people's honey (which at least one of these does) so I can't always rely on that continuity of supply. I don't want to industrialise or expand what I am doing as we are supposed to be retired and enjoying ourselves... last year the whole thing with the abandoned bees we had dumped on us almost tipped Mr Sl into saying enough, so I am being uber cautious. We have 9 hives, which is plenty. Mr Sl is off out to check them all shortly; while there is plenty of pollen (high protein that they make into brood food to feed the larvae) there is b-all nectar yet so feeding is still needed.

I sell our honey at the doorstep, to an increasing band of locals who all really like it, and to the farm where we keep the bees; they now buy multiple large jars to put their own labels on (along with mine, saying I am the beekeeper) and they give them away as personal gifts to all their family and friends instead of bottles of alcohol. She is an artist. I was thinking about asking her to design a label image for me but she sells her works for several thousand pounds, and to be honest, if I can nail jelly to the wall, Mr SL is very good as a designer of over 40 years standing, who learned his trade as hand-drawn plans and technical drawing - frankly he is quite creative anough and should be doing it! Also my friend has offered to buy some of the honey I warmed up to stop it from proper fermentation - she makes chilli-infused honey and sells it at a couple of markets near her. I can also shift some at the County Show in May. As long as we cool the room it is in after visitors have whacked up the heating, it should be good!

I got the first quote for the house insurance through yesterday. Over £2100 compared to just a smidge under £1800 last year. What has changed? nothing. We haven't even lit the log-burner this winter. They are doing a full market comparison, to see if it can be delivered for a better price.

Suffolk_lass

A bit more from me, Ernie added £175 to my PB holding, but sadly, no more for Mr Sl's. Thank you again @in_need_of_direction I would not have checked again until the email.

Someone responded to my post about free rooted strawberry runners (about 60 of them) - she has collected them this morning. I'm fairly sure she is going to sell them but I don't mind. It seemed a shame to compost them.

I did a little local shop for more veg (Mr Sl is scoffing late night carrots as his preferred alternaitive to cheese and thickly buttered crackers). I also bought a low fat spreadable thing. Slightly higher than the 28% one he requested (not sold in that store) but at 34% it was a lot better than all the others that started at 79%. Sometimes, you just need it. 

Yesterday evening I cooked pancakes that were frankly, mostly egg and milk in a cast iron omelette pan with maybe half a teasoon of oil every second pancake. He was happy, and so was I. Like @foxgloves it was lemon and sugar for us. After our study group, we had jacket potato with (him) leftover mince and a pinch of grated cheese and (me), butter with a little more grated cheese. Very odd, eating the dessert before the savoury part.

For today I have a piece of braising steak that I chopped and cooked in water with harissa paste and smoked paprika, yesterday. I have chilled it, skimmed the fat, then softened onion, celery and carrot chopped and simmered in water, and added these, with the meat, to the sauce, now thickened with cornflour. I have chopped a large potato to mash and top the meat mix. I have cauliflower and cabbage to have with it. I am out tonight with some bee pals, so it will be a very early supper.

I've baked a loaf and two small 2-roll sized loaves that I will freeze. 

And I am considering postponing my bee exam due to the upheavel from the health episode. I know he's home but I am still fretting and my lovely dad is in my thoughts. Struggling to remember all the anatomical terms.

Right, a slice of bread, I think!

KajiKita

When is the bee exam and when would you end up postponing it to? Does not doing the exam stop you doing anything important to you? 

Love the idea of Mr SL designing your own honey label My dad's honey labels were designed by a friend of my mother's when they were working together on the vernacular architecture project - he did all the elevation and plan drawings. One day, completely unprompted he turned up with a beautiful pen and ink drawing of a honey label with a briar rose design on it. My dad has been using it ever since. We did have to adapt it at one point when a Trading Standards officer made him display the metric weight as well as '1 Lb' - I had a friend at the time who was a graphic designer and she scoured the internet to find a font that would match as well as possible to the hand written style my mother's friend had used. I think that original label design must have been in use for c. 30+ years now ...

You sound like you are adapting to low fat eating quite well. One useful (low fat) way of cooking mushrooms is to simmer them in those little sachets of miso soup.

KK

redofromstart

Great suggestion on the mushrooms for me too, thanks KK.