Putting away food for the cold months is a major preoccupation these days. Like bees gathering nectar for honey, we are freezing, drying, canning and just generally squirreling away food for winter. We have a deer in the freezer and lots of fish already (it’s not even steelhead season yet). From our neighbors, we have some rabbit, a new meat for us. And from the garden I’ve dried onions and garlic for storage, made pesto from our basil and also from our kale to store in our freezer. Beans are frozen as well as corn from the Columbia Basin. I’ve dried nectarines from a roadside stand and tomorrow I need to make some jam from the really ripe ones. There are lots of potatoes to dig. We hope to get some honey from Ken’s bees however they have recently been attacked by ‘robber bees’ from someone else’s hive. He’s covered most of the entrances but still these robber bees are all around and they are not only aggresive to Ken’s bees but to us and the dogs too.
These are the ‘robber bees’ trying to steal Ken’s bees’ honey
Various kinds of garlic to get us through the winter
Yellow Onions. I am not so good at growing onions as I am at growing garlic
Dried nectarines for skiing and hiking outings! What a treat.
Little tomatoes. These would be good dried.
Big tomatoes for fresh eating or sauce
Still some bees getting nectar and pollen from the tall sunflowers