A Simple Life of Luxury

Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means

Category: Hobbies & Pastimes

1

Beekeeping

Another Honey Harvest

Having harvested some honey a few weeks ago, the bees fought back and stopped us taking any more for a while. One of the hives had honey that, at the time, wasn’t fully sealed, another decided to sting us and prevent us getting any off. So, we left them for a few weeks and then...

2

Beekeeping

Honey Hostilities

This weekend was all about the honey harvest! Anna collected the extractor on Friday afternoon and I’d already put clearer boards on a couple of our hives. The ‘Bedroom’ Hive was huge with 4 completely full supers and a fifth that was half full. ‘Dyfi’ hive had two full supers and ‘Leri’ had a couple...

Looking good 1

Hobbies & Pastimes

Pottery Classes

Our pottery classes are coming to an end so it’s been a little difficult to decide what to do next as there doesn’t seem to be much point starting new projects as we won’t have time to finish them – it takes weeks what with drying time, firing time, decorations, glazes and a second firing....

Pottery Decorating 0

Hobbies & Pastimes

Decorating Pottery

Most of our time was spent decorating some of our pottery creations whilst at out pottery ‘class’ this week. I’ve decided that Anna’s is better at this part of the process than I am!

Garden Pond 1

Gardening

Pond Update

Seeing as it’s now been just over a year since we decided (on somewhat of a whim) to create a pond in the garden, I thought I’d update you on its progress. It was always intended as a ‘wildlife’ pond. That’s an excuse for letting it go a bit wild, leaving it to do its...

Pinks and Purples 0

Gardening

Cheerful Garden

Just a few photos of some garden colour to cheer things up. Oh, and a silly cat!!

0

Hobbies & Pastimes

Pottery Creations

Our pottery lessons continue and are quite good fun. We may never become experts, but that’s not important. The process is quite time-consuming, partly because we attend just once a week. Additionally, there are drying times between each stage and two firing processes for each piece too. Yesterday, we finally brought home our first completed...

Nuc Box positioned for capture 1

Beekeeping

Making Increase

I thought I was doing quite well with the bees this year. There was an early swarm or possibly a supersedure in the hive by the bedroom at the beginning of April. This was actually a fairly good thing as the hive re-queened and the queen was laying last time I looked. All good there...

1

Beekeeping

An Early Swarm

After a very cold and wet start to Spring things warmed up enough for me to inspect the bees a couple of times. The first inspection was mainly to put the queen excluders back on and see what was happening. I knew there were bees in both hives but the queen excluders had been removed...

Pottery throwing by Alan 2

Hobbies & Pastimes

Pottery Progression

Week 4 at pottery (week 3 for me) and we’ve progressed to the potters wheel! I was expecting a complete mess, lots of wasted clay and much hilarity as we grappled with it. So, after a quick demo we sat at the wheels, slapped some clay onto them and got our hands dirty. Controlling the...