Minding my beeswax

Tonight I share with you my latest project! Yay! So here we go.There is lots of information about processing beeswax online. I am simply sharing with you what I did. Keep in mind if you ever want to do this at home you must get a separate pot just for working with the wax. You will never get that pot wax-free again.

Here is what is called "cappings" It is the wax they cut off the comb so they could drain the honey off. 

 Then I soaked it in water twice and drained the water off. Then I added enough water to cover the wax

Here it is boiling. Beeswax is flammable so you have to keep an eye on it. I warm up the water to about med-high and once it gets really going I turn it down to nearly low. See that brown stuff? Despite my best efforts it never melted.

You can see my non- melting brown stuff here. It was starting to cool down. At this stage all I did was set the whole pot to the side and let it solidify. Due to wax being lighter than water, it all just floated to the top and hardens. 

This it what that brown stuff ends up like. It is stuck to the bottom of the wax disc. It is called "slum gum". Slum gum is all the random debris from in the hive. Mostly cocoons from the change from larvae to bee.

Here is the top of my pretty wax disc, 

This was my very first attempt, Since then I have been putting cheese clothe over various other recyclable containers and straining the slum gum out. So that is a glimpse of what I have been working on.

Play, beeswax and a sad moment

Quick up date.

Ethan's play is over. Let me just say, it was very rewarding to watch everyone get to see how awesome he is. The lady next to me was a season ticket holder who told me " I hope to see your husband on stage again soon." Thanks, that makes me smile. He worked with a lot of really incredible people. 

I finally made something with my beeswax. I used this recipe. I even made some lotion to give to the cast as a thank you gift. 

We planted the garden last night, OK some of it. My sister let me dig some blueberry bushes up at her house and transplanted them here. Some black berry bushes came along too. 

On a completely unrelated note-

A while back a house down the street caught on fire. A 22 year old man died. Today they are tearing the house down. It made  me very sad to sit there and watch the parents witness the house their son had died in be torn down. That must be really hard. Sometimes I wish there was more I could do for people around me.

Let's get classical, kind of.

Does anyone else ever feel like some classical music is actually just exercises for the musicians to see how well they can play? Sometimes I can not even pick out a real melody and it really isn't even nice to listen to.
Victor was a bit leery about attending the symphony the other night. I can't say I blame him. There are some music pieces that I love so much and well... we already mentioned those I am not as fond of.

I just wanted to share with you some of our favorites from the other night.

Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the common man"

Camille Saint-Saens "Danse macabre"

Ralph Vaughan Williams English Folk Song Suite March "Seventeen come Sunday"

Reinhold Gliere "Russian Sailor Dance" from the ballet "The Red Poppy" ( We played this song in orchestra. I really like this one.)

Georges Bizet Suite from Carmen "Intermezzo"

Also from Carmen "Habanera"

 And of course you can't forget "Chanson Du Toreador" from Carmen. (We are big fans of Carmen around here.)

We finished up the night with Franz Liszt "Les Preludes, Symphonic poem #3"

Music can be so uplifting. I think my favorite part was sitting down and looking over the program with Victor and listening to him getting excited about pieces that he already knew and loved. Of course his first question was " Are they playing  In the Hall of the Mountain King?" No they didn't, but you can listen to it if you want.

Because of Him

In an effort to put important things first and to teach my kids good habits, for the last month we have been having personal scripture study time for each kid after family prayer.

The problem with this particular scenario is that only two of the five are independant  readers. So that means Caleb and Phebe need someone to read with them.  Right now we have been reading from some illustrated scripture reader books.

Phebe likes the New Testament. She looks through each night to find the portion she wants to read. Each night she chooses the crucifixtion. After a few days of only this choice I started to add the portion of Christ's ressurection in to remind here the story doesn't end at his death.

I began to feel a bit concerned about her seemingly morbid consistent selection.

One night as we sat down to read I finally asked her why she liked reading about when Jesus died. "Because it is important. He died so I can live with Heavenly Father again."

So tonight and tomorrow and most likely each night in my foreseeable future I know what we will read. And I will no longer be concerned, only touched.

The question answered and random stuff.

Hi, my name is Vanessa. I am a slacking blogger. Sorry for the utter lack of any posts at all. Plenty of cool stuff going on here. I just have been being part of that cool stuff and not hanging out on the internet.

 

OK, the answer to the last who am I, was indeed Neil L Andersen. Good job Meggan and Darcy my daring contestants who got the correct answer. You can learn more about Elder Andersen here.

Here is his talk in the most recent general conference-

Good stuff in there I tell you.

***

In other news-

The baby is crawling and now has a tooth.

We were given free tickets to see the Pittsburgh Symphony do their student side by side performance. There are high school students who help put together the whole ordeal and students who actually  perform next to the professionals. You can find out more about the program here.  The music selections were fantastic. My oldest 3 children and I went down with a friend and their children. It was a truly lovely evening. Of course my kids were not crushed when they handed out ice cream sandwiches at the end. 

My husband is in a play. A very funny play. I am excited for him. I love his desire to do things outside of his comfort zone like this.

I have been working on processing beeswax. I have been taking pictures a long the way and will soon do a blog about it. I think it is pretty awesome.

Tonight we will feed the missionaries. We are going to have coconut curried stew because that fills me with happiness, and my family likes it. I hope the missionaries do too.

Then to activity days and scouts.

Yay for life and things to do!

Guess who, take 4!

The answer is....

L Tom Perry.

Learn more about his awesomeness here.

Here is a previous address of his. 

***

Who am I?

• I was five when my parents moved our family to a dairy farm in Pocatello, Idaho.
• I accepted a mission call and served faithfully in the France Mission.
• I attended BYU and Harvard.
• I married Kathy Williams in the Salt Lake Temple in March 1975.
• While I attended BYU my day would start at 4:00 am when I would go to clean bathrooms in the library .
• I have a master’s degree in business administration.
• I became an apostle in 2009
• I speak French, Portuguese, and Spanish in addition to his native English.  
• I settled in Tampa, Florida, where my business interests included advertising, real estate development, and health care.
• My wife and I have 4 children.
• I was born Logan Utah on August 9, 1951.
• I served as a mission president in France and Brazil.
• Our family moved 8 times due to church assignments.
• I served as Executive Director of the Church Audiovisual Department,
• I counseled missionaries: “Don’t live your life without miracles.”

Guess who, Take 3!

The answer is...

.  

D. Todd Christofferson.

You can learn more about him here.

Here is an address of his from a previous conference.

***

Next up...

Who am I?

• I was born August 5, 1922, in Logan, Utah
• I was committed to perfect attendance at church. One Sunday I was sick with tonsillitis, and my parents decided the attendance record would have to be broken. All members of the family left for Church except my mother and me. But the family was surprised to see us enter the chapel a few minutes after the meeting had started.
• Currently, he is the third most senior and oldest living apostle in the church.
• Among the neighborhood boys, I was the leader. No umpires were needed for our ball games because of my ability to arbitrate disputes.
• I attended Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, Utah, (now Utah State University), Utah.
• I then served a mission to the Northern States, where i gained a great love for the Book of Mormon.
• Weeks after returning from my mission, I was drafted into military service and volunteered for the Marine Corps. I was among the first of the occupation troops to enter Japan after World War II.
• While experiencing the passing of my wife in 1974, my daughter in 1983, and two of my grandchildren, I relied on my faith in a loving Father in Heaven.
• My son, spoke of the times he accompanied me as a timekeeper on speaking assignments while I was a high councilor in the Sacramento area. “He would give me his watch, and I would sit in the center of the congregation, a few rows from the front. We used the signs of the three monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. If he wasn’t standing straight, I would cover my eyes. If he was speaking too loudly, I would cover my ears, and just before his time was up, I would cover my mouth,”
• My professional career was spent in the retail business, where I served as vice president and treasurer in companies located in Idaho, California, New York, and Massachusetts.
• On July 18, 1947, I married Virginia Lee of Hyde Park, Utah, in the Logan Temple.
• We have 3 children,
• I became an apostle April 6, 1974.
• I became a fan of the Boston Red Sox and I threw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game on May 8, 2004.
• I was able to help my volley ball team win the championship thanks to my enthusiastic attitude.