and there was light (and it smelled good)

We made beeswax candles this weekend. I am all set for a romantic evening and/or power outage.

The wax is from a local beekeeper. We also filtered it ourselves (not this weekend). That was an exercise in patience, for sure. If you know an easy way to filter wax (and really, anything would be easier than any of the methods I tried), please let me know.

In any event, enough time had passed since the trauma of the filtering. I was ready to do this, thinking there must be a catch. There isn’t. I got the metal votive molds and wicks from A.C. Moore, using a 40 percent off coupon. (I didn’t want to invest much in case this was a bust.) I melted the wax in a double boiler, placed the wick in the mold and poured in the wax. At this point, I freaked out thinking that maybe I should have sprayed the mold with Pam or something. I then realized, well, it’s wax.

Our candles are all natural, nothing but beeswax. They have a faint scent of honey.

Candle-making inspiration here.

pen nerds, unite

We received some Frixion erasable pens and highlighters to try out. I am a bit of a pen nerd. These work really well – surprisingly well, actually. The boy demonstrates (video taken via Blackberry, hence the low light):

 

These have been on sale lately in the school supply section at Publix. Visit http://bit.ly/bpBjYt to download a $1.00 coupon. I found a three-pack of highlighters at Walgreens for $1.05. Less than $.02 per highlighter? I’ll take that.

 

Pilot and SheSpeaks sent us products to review. Opinions are my own.

this moment

Participating in Amanda’s this moment project:

{this moment} - A Friday ritual - capturing a moment from the week.

First day of school…

the youngest

The boy turned 12 while he was at Boy Scout Camp. Dad was there, too, but that means both of my children celebrated their birthdays away from home this year. That’s what happens when you have summer birthdays, I suppose. We celebrated when he came home and like his sister, he requested Molten Chocolate Lava Cake and fresh whipped cream in lieu of the traditional cake. My husband has a birthday next month and he has already requested the same thing.

this moment

Participating in Amanda’s this moment project:

{this moment} - A Friday ritual - capturing a moment from the week.

The butterflies will flutter by far too soon.

and now it’s a food blog…

Those peppers I showed you ended up in the freezer. I washed all the bells, cored them and cut them in strips. I spread them on cookie sheets and tray froze (?) them, before bagging them for the deep freeze. They went from field to freezer in just a few hours. I am looking for a feasible alternative to freezer bags. I want to avoid plastic, but I also want my food to be safely stored through the winter. I am open to suggestions.

The hot peppers went straight in the bag. I didn’t even wash them. I will use them in salsa and such, so as I pull them out one by one I will rinse them well and just cut them up for use then. I have done this many times before with great results.

The okra was a bit of a pain, but it will be worth it. I am probably the only one who will eat it. More for me. I rinsed the okra well and trimmed the stem end. This involves cutting off the stem but not opening up the seed pod. This skill is easily mastered after the first 150 pieces or so. (No joke.) I blanched the okra and cooled it in an ice bath, following these instructions. I bagged it and will enjoy its southern yumminess this winter (or sooner).

know thy farmer

I love that we live in an area where we can still buy direct from the farm. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but it is worth it. I recently trekked out to Barefoot Organic Farm and came home with 42 pounds of tomatoes (mostly Romas), four pounds of okra, eight pounds of peppers (bell – mostly red, some purple and green, and Hungarian Wax), as well as four dozen fresh-from-the-free-range-chicken eggs. Farmer Kathy raises chickens and turkeys as meat birds. I haven’t bought those, but if you eat meat and you are local, give her a try. Her birds live out in the fresh air and sunshine, eating bugs and such the way God intended. They are not the grotesque, sickly birds from Food, Inc. I can’t think about those poor birds…

Anyway, back to the veggies:

I picked a peck of peppers just beyond that barn. Maybe it wasn’t a peck. If you zoom in, you can actually see one of the egg layers scratching around back there. Cool.

Future site of the okra field: