May 19, 2010

Tomorrow it is suppose to drop to 7. Thankfully that is in Celcius. So far the change in temperature has been wonderful. Even though I know colder weather is looming and my house is poorly insulated from the elements (my roof still leaks too) I just keep remembering how oppressively hot the summer was. (Now a professor is standing over my shoulder as I write. I’m jotting thoughts down in my planner as I wait for the 8th grade professor who I am working on the garden with).
These past few days I have been experimenting with oranges. I have quite an abundance of them. I just wish my internet was fast enough to look up more ideas. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. At a store that sells used goods in Asuncion I found a muffin pan and promptly made some orange muffins. Those sure have been popular. I even had my first host grandmother, Ña Vinda give me eggs, flour, and sugar so I could make more. (My secret flavor enhancer has boiling the orange peels with water until it was highly concentrated. My purpose was to see if I could extract oil from the rind. That didn’t happen, but I used up all the concentrated orange flavoring anyway). I am also attempting to ferment it like I would apple cider.
Yesterday, I went to visit Don Ignicio to see if he had finished the bataea style beehive. He was in the process of making a chain-link fence. I was intrigued by the simple little hand-cranked machine and asked him for a demonstration. I wish I had a picture to explain better. It was just a simple set of gears that when cranked fed the wire around a flat piece of metal that would bend it and thread it along the previous row of bent wire. Crank. Cut. Bend. Reattach hooks. Repeat. I don’t know how many meters I ended up making I finally told myself it was time to leave after lunch. That’s when he showed me the hive. I was so impressed and happy I wanted to give him a hug. He had followed the directions I had given him down to the centimeter and it was just falta the bamboo for the top of the panals. Now if it would just warm up enough so we can do the wild hive capture.