Beeswax wraps

What to do with all the beeswax? After a few years of making candles, we wanted to try new beeswax wraps, but the recipe was hard to find.  I converted a bunch of online recipes to an approximate ratio by weight of wax, resin and jojoba oil. My method: 100g …

Building tube wall

Notes: Plastic types for toys:  http://www.pvcinformation.org/assets/pdf/PlasticSubstitutesPVCtoys_Tickner.pdf Best to worst: 5. Bio-based (cellulose, etc) 4. Polyethylene and Polypropylene 3. PET 2. Polycarbonate, ABS, Polystyrene, Polyurethane 1.  PVC (worst) Magnetic tubes Wall Plastic magnet cover Magnet styles from McMaster Carr: Magnets (try building a pipe-wall magnetic block out of wood and connect …

Mead General

After a few years of making mead, I want to collect everything in one place.  In general, the washed wax mead tends to have a strong hive flavor, and pure honey mead is light and doesn’t have that additional funky flavors…  Some batches have gotten a “burnt popcorn” kind of …

Cider General

Cider main page. Cider Making Notes 2019 Harvest 2018 Harvest 2017 Harvest 2016 Harvest 2015 Harvest My Trees: (years are the year of tree purchase or initial graft in January of that year) Sweet (eating apples) with the following branches: (2008) Jonagold McIntosh? Granny Smith Gravenstein (2016) Honeycrisp (2017) Kingston Black (2015?) …

Things to build with Max

List of cool projects for Max: Soda bottle rocket. Make Magazine 20 things to make with the kids Rigamajig Come back can Kazoo. https://www.scienceworld.ca/resource/homemade-kazoo/ Chromatography caper Scout Projects & Links: Navigating the Duty to god requirements

Cider 2018

  First Pressing: 175lbs / 8 gallons of small apples from Seth’s tree. (Definitely not Lady apples!). Maybe Fameuse? 0.5 gallon of Gravenstein 1.5 gallons of Sequoia St. Crabapples (1.5 bags) 10 gallons total of juice, divided among 3 batches (plan for 3 3-gallon carboys) OG=1.050,  Acid= , pH=3.0 Batch …

Sauerkraut

Adventures in making Sauerkraut from Sandor Katz’s book and Michael Pollan’s recipe based on it 2020/01/04 2.8 lbs red cabbage 3.0 lbs of green cabbage Added 1.5 tsp salt per pound of cabbage = 9 tsp of salt Add 1/2 tsp of caraway per lb of cabbage = 3tsp 1 …

Apple Cider Vinegar

How to make cider vinegar Make apple cider alcohol Open lid to allow air to enter the container.  Replace lid with cheesecloth to keep bugs from getting in. A gelatinous mat will form on the top surface.  That’s the culture that’s converting the alcohol to vinegar. Wait a few months. …

Bees

Summary of bees from each year 2020 Bees survived the winter after treating them with the formic acid treatment. They were growing like gangbusters in the winter/spring, and I needed to put more boxes on so there were 5 total, but then they started dying out front. When checking with …

China Camp 24

Campgrounds

Notes for reserving campgrounds. Book State campgrounds tomorrow at 8am for [insert_php] echo date(‘D M d Y’, strtotime(“+6 months 1 day”)); [/insert_php] Holidays: La Scuola holidays 2022: Feb 21-25:  Presidents week March 25: Friday off:  Samuel Taylor Site 20 reservation Friday & Saturday nights April 8 Friday: professional development April 11-15: …