Monday, April 18, 2005
You know you live in a gulag when....
it is not possible to buy active brewers yeast anyplace. I have a friend who wants to learn the fine art of mead makeing, and we had to resort to BREAD YEAST! now bread yest is wonderful for btead, but it is not the best thing to use making mead. There are ways around the problem, I've had the situation arise ( no pun intended) of not haveing the right kind of yeast around, and not haveing transport to a store, but before, had I gone to one of the local stores, brewers yeast would have been available in all but the health food stores which heare are owned by people who do not approve of alchol, or it's cration. For the record this is a Christian sect. Just want that clear.
Anyway the whole thing turned into the 'Quest For Yeast' an EPIC, and very tiresome.
Honey also has gone up a lot in price.
That's understandaable, bees have been aflicted with bee mites, and the poor dears have been dying in great numbers. This is sad, as bees are lovely creatures.
I am not afraid of bees. When I had a large area of raspberries in one house, I used to go out and pick them to make melomel and wine from them, they were very abundant and had lots of flowers. Of course the bees loved those flowers and my yard was full of their humming. I would go out and pick but I'd kind of say 'OK girls I'm here, I just want to pick raspberries, not bother you' They'd actually go work elswhere in teh bushes, and I'd tell them, 'OK I'm done here for now, I'd like to go up that way please' and they'd scoot, it was amazeing to watch. Sometimes they landed on me and I never was stung. I never did anything to keep them off me, other than to be fully dressed while near their favorite work places, the blackberries, the raspberries and the cherry and apple tree.
Once while visiting in Croatia I killed a bee thinking the poor thing was a wasp. There'd been one in the kitchan and it had been driveing me nuts. Well anyway, I have poor eyesight, and hit her by mistake. She was dead and landed in the sink, and i realized sadly it was a bee. So i took the wather in that pan out where she'd landed and put that in the garden and loudly appologized to all the bees in hearing. My fiance didn't even think that was wierd. Some might have, but I think with bees you are dealing with something intelligent and must show a certain respect. I have only ever been stung once in my life, and never even come close since. That was an accident, a bee was in the car, and under a blanket, and I stepped on her. She really had no choice. She was only defending herself.
That was when my family were in Mexico. I forget just why my sister and I were alone in the car that time, probably my parents were buying something.
Anyway the whole thing turned into the 'Quest For Yeast' an EPIC, and very tiresome.
Honey also has gone up a lot in price.
That's understandaable, bees have been aflicted with bee mites, and the poor dears have been dying in great numbers. This is sad, as bees are lovely creatures.
I am not afraid of bees. When I had a large area of raspberries in one house, I used to go out and pick them to make melomel and wine from them, they were very abundant and had lots of flowers. Of course the bees loved those flowers and my yard was full of their humming. I would go out and pick but I'd kind of say 'OK girls I'm here, I just want to pick raspberries, not bother you' They'd actually go work elswhere in teh bushes, and I'd tell them, 'OK I'm done here for now, I'd like to go up that way please' and they'd scoot, it was amazeing to watch. Sometimes they landed on me and I never was stung. I never did anything to keep them off me, other than to be fully dressed while near their favorite work places, the blackberries, the raspberries and the cherry and apple tree.
Once while visiting in Croatia I killed a bee thinking the poor thing was a wasp. There'd been one in the kitchan and it had been driveing me nuts. Well anyway, I have poor eyesight, and hit her by mistake. She was dead and landed in the sink, and i realized sadly it was a bee. So i took the wather in that pan out where she'd landed and put that in the garden and loudly appologized to all the bees in hearing. My fiance didn't even think that was wierd. Some might have, but I think with bees you are dealing with something intelligent and must show a certain respect. I have only ever been stung once in my life, and never even come close since. That was an accident, a bee was in the car, and under a blanket, and I stepped on her. She really had no choice. She was only defending herself.
That was when my family were in Mexico. I forget just why my sister and I were alone in the car that time, probably my parents were buying something.
# posted by Katja R. @ 6:11 PM 
