New Year's Eve

Our New Year's eve has turned out to be hard and gloriously satisfying work. Abuleo harvested our backyard honey - a task made easier by his fabulous straining frame that fits perfectly over the big plastic box he uses to drain the honey into. There are still hives outside the city, to harvest tomorrow. It looks like we will have enough honey for the year. We eat enormous amounts between the four of us so we need a lot!! It smells so good in the kitchen and we were licking honey off the table at the end, chewing on honey comb, marveling at the golden glow. I have a red swollen foot as a reminder that even though there were minimal bee losses in the process, they are out and about and all over the lawn. We have many hives in our garden, most of which are going to new homes now that they are established. We usually walk about bare foot and bee stings are a rarity considering the population of ladies in our yard.

Our apricots and plums are ready for picking and I'm trying two different plum jam recipes - Stephanie Alexander's, which involves leaving the cut plums and sugar covering a muslin bag with the stone kernels buried beneath, over night. The other I found on the internet which, like my stock standard Stephanie apricot jam recipe involves warming the sugar. Last year I tried making jam with 2/3 of the sugar recommended and it was OK. Jen and I decided today that really you just gotta have sugar for successful jam. It's a treat. What the heck!

With a rapidly inflating and reddening foot I made a zucchini feast, given they are now prolific. Zucchini flowers stuffed and fried with Meredith's Got Cheese (yep, every bit as magnificent as they sound)and zucchini pie - all fluffy and covered in home made tomato sauce (not our tomatoes yet, but our eggs, garlic, herbs...)There are now 30 kilos of honey on the kitchen table and it's time for a glass of wine and a quiet slipping into the new year. I feel full of family love and good food and I'm looking forward to this coming year without study and more time to paint and sing and romp with our rapidly growing 'babes'! May your New Year begin with those you love, in safety and happiness and abundance. May your jam set and your Zucchinis flower and your hearts be full!