Our Rainwater Catchment System

The semi-long awaited 10th episode!
On this BubbaCast I answer some feedback, apologize for completely messing up the feed while doing some housekeeping, go over some other webby stuff and talk about designing a rainwater catchment system. Yes, I did edit in a disclaimer around the 39 minute mark. I don’t normally edit much, but I thought it was important. Thanks for listening!

Cool Links:

More Rainwater Harvesting Info
Self Sufficient Homestead Podcast – with Johnny Mac & the Queen
Shurflo Pumps
Uniseal

Music: James Larson

Subscribe in a reader
Podcast Subscribe Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/bubbatanicals

BubbaCast # 10 [ 52:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is great news and may lead the way to a realistic viable treatment for CCD.
——————————

JERUSALEM, July 21 (UPI) — An Israeli company says it has developed a vaccine that protects honey bees from a virus associated with the widespread collapse of bee colonies worldwide.
Beelogics says its Remembee drug has proven effective in helping bees overcome Israel acute paralysis virus, Haaretz reported Tuesday. The virus is named for the country where it was first identified.

The drug has completed successful clinical trials on millions of bees in North America, the company said. The drug also helps the bees live longer and produce more honey, the company said.

“It’s really a tug of war between the virus and the host,” said Nitzan Paldi of Beeologics. “We are helping the bee tug the rope more strongly and beat the virus. We take advantage of an immune system that the bees elicit for viral disease. But we are really using naturally occurring phenomenon. It’s not a pesticide and it’s not toxic.”

Beeologics is pursing U.S. government approval for the drug, Haaretz said.

Making Peach Butter

In this pre-tenth BubbaCast I go mobile and cover some peachy product updates. I get a HUGE shout out from Sean Kennedy (how awesome is that?!), accidentally drop the ‘F-Bomb’, try to adopt an immigrant worker, toss kittens around, and tell you just enough about electric fences to do some real damage. Thanks for listening!

Cool Links:
Rant Media
Freedom Gardens

Music: James Larson

Subscribe in a reader
Podcast Subscribe Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/bubbatanicals

BubbaCast # 9 [ 50:39 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Our new roof is finally being put down.

Woohoo! The new roof is going down (or is that up?) today, and it looks great! This crew is amazing. I’ve never seen people work so hard.

Peaches and Cream Soap

Boy howdy have we been busy around here. On the way back up from Jekyll we stopped at Dickies Farm and picked up a few bushels of peaches. Needless to say that on top of everything else we’ve spent our spare moments canning and soaping. And what do we have to show for our efforts? Well there’s the peaches n’ cream soap pictured above. There’s also peach jam, peach butter, peach salsa, and ginger peach jam (amazing!!). My dining room table is covered in mason jars.

Canning stuff is hot work. I can only imagine what it would be like in the dead of a south Georgia summer without air conditioning as it was back the day. I also managed to bang out some more lard soap which turned out really nice thanks to a tweak I made to the recipe.

The bees are doing ok. I’ve lost 3 hives this year, but the remaining colonies seem to be thriving. Go figure. I’ve got several hive updates to post as well, but will get around to those as I am able.

More later…

The makings of peach jam

I was up way too late last night making ginger peach jam. We don’t grow peaches, but we picked up a few bushels of them from Dickies Farm about an hour south of us.

It was a really neat experience and well worth the stop if you happen to be in the area. The fresh peach ice cream is unbelievable.

The ginger peach jam was looking good this morning and we’ll get it up on the site in a few days. We’ve got some other products that need pictures taken so expect those to be fixed around the same time.

I’ll just go ahead and tell you guys.. this stuff is delicious and I expect it to go fast. If you want some, get your order in quick.

Me next to a seaturtle nest on Jekyll

As far as squinty-eyed constipated photos go, this is a personal best.  However, I’m really just hanging out chilling with around a hundred of my closest baby sea turtle friends.

With their nesting habitat quickly dwindling, Jekyll Island is very important to sea turtles and home to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center.

The gloves are because I rode the bike there.  They are not a tribute to the late King of Pop.

Dolphins

In spite of the small craft advisory that the Coast Guard issued this morning, we took the boat out to the south side of Jekyll Island near St Andrews Sound.   To our luck, the local dolphins were still having breakfast and posed for some pictures.

Peach Packing at Dickies Farm

On the way down to Jekyll Island we stopped at Dickies Farm for peaches and fresh peach ice cream.  The ice cream was phenominal.  This is a picture of their packing operation.  According to Dickies, they run the oldest packing house in the state.