LIFE AT HONEY PIE

We miss the food, the swimming, and especially the people at Honey Pie!

HELPING OUT AT HONEY PIE

While we were at Honey Pie Hives and Herbals we got to help out with all the different things going on. It was honey harvest time, so we spent some very hot hours in the extraction room, taking the honey off the combs and bottling it. It was sticky and sometimes delicious work.

We also helped with some wildcrafting; collecting plants from the amazing collection throughout the garden to be dried and used for teas, salves, lotions and other cool creations.

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Making wildflower posies ready for the Farmers Market in Toronto.

Bottling the delicious lavender honey, collected from hives at a lavender farm.

A collection of Sumac ready to be dried.

Collecting Red Clover to be dried and made into ‘Tea Party’ Tea.

The Wildcrafting badge awarded to Philippa by Bay!

HONEY PIE HIVES AND HERBALS

While we were in Canada we spent two weeks at Honey Pie Hives and Herbals, helping out and living with owners Bay and Gavin and their two kids Rowan and Hazel. Honey Pie Hives and Herbals is located in the very idyllic Prince Edward County, an island surrounded by Lake Ontario. Bay and Gavin and their kids live in a straw bale house that they built themselves. It is a beautiful structure which is extremely economical to heat. We stayed in a very cute and very little 1950’s caravan which backed onto the woods.

Downstairs they run their shop, selling an amazing array of items produced using their hives and the plants on their property, including honey, candles, teas and lotions. You can check out the Honey Pie Hives and Herbals website here.

THERE WILL BE BUZZ

As mentioned earlier Spirit Hills makes beautiful mead with honey.  In order to get all the delicious organic honey needed, they manage a lot of bee hives. I got to help out Hugo with the bees over our stay (thanks Hugo!). And as a result bees have been on my mind a lot lately. They say that the drone of bees can create a trance like state, which would explain why hours in the bee yards seemed to pass so quickly. But this doesn’t totally explain why people get so into bees, demonstrated by the disproportionate amount of art they inspire (this 80’s pop classic being just one good example, and here is a list of all fictional bees!).

I think part of the appeal of bees is that we have so much to learn from these lil guys. Understandably, many people think the Queen bee runs a strict dictatorial system of government. But while I was at Spirit Hills I got to read a great book called Honeybee Democracy. In it super bee nerd Dr T. Seeley demonstrates that when it comes to key decisions the hive operates as a democracy. For example an idea for the hive to relocate will be considered by the other bees, and if enough bees like the sound of the idea, the move is made. I kind of want to try and draw some parallels between the bee’s form of democracy and that of Australia, with its legally entrenched and largely symbolic monarch combined with a very democratic form of government. But I think that could get messy…

So just quickly, other cool bee facts I have learned include the role of the Drone bee (the males). Drone bees purpose in life is to try and have sex with a Queen bee. This is unlikely, as each Queen goes on one maiden flight at the start of her life in which she mates with several bees, amassing a collection of thousands of sperm which she stores in a sac, and uses for the next few years to fertilise the eggs she lays. If a Drone is lucky enough to get lucky with a Queen, his penis explodes from the experience and he dies instantly, dropping from the place of their passion 30m above the ground. If he is not so ‘lucky’, he sits around in the hive all summer just eating and drinking and getting in the way, and then the Worker bees (females) drag him out of the hive and block his return so he will die in the cold of winter…. As I said a lot to learn!

Clearly I am wigging out about bees. Which is why I will leave my final bee fact (for now) being that bees are in danger. This is a serious problem. Einstein is quoted as saying that if the bees all died humans would survive for only four years. I don’t know what this stat is based on, but c’mon, he was a pretty sharp dude. So basically the way bees are dying en masse around the world is something worth thinking about. People are not certain why this is happening, but it is argued that pesticides and Genetically Modified Organisim’s have played a part in screwing with the bees beautiful and finely tuned way of life. It is such a sad example of the way humans can destroy the most beautiful things they depend on… a lot to learn indeed. DV

SPIRIT HILLS WINERY

At Spirit Hills we helped out in the winery, which was actually a meadery. Mead is the product of an ancient practice of fermenting honey to produce alcohol (think Game of Thrones). This is a video I made for Spirit Hills capturing the process of making mead from beginning to end. It doesn’t show all the tasting we did though! DV

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY ALL YOU CRAZY LOVE BIRDS

Happy Valentine’s Day! This is a cover of God Only Knows by the Beach Boys I recorded a few years back for my Casio Covers project.  I hope you enjoy. PV

OLIVE PICKING IN TUSCANY

Ciao bello! Ciao bella!

Finally our blog has caught up with us! We are currently at this farm in Toscano, Italia called La Serre. It is an organic olive farm, and the video below is just a quick look at what the work is like.

We have had the pleasure of working with some great people here, but in all honesty we have the most fun with Enrico, who owns the farm. He likes to spontaneously sing Bob Dylan songs while we pick, hence the song choice for the video. And he also says many very funny things, like “the pigs are smart… they eat twice a day… we eat three times… we are the pig.”

And when one of us tries to climb a little too high trying to get olives, Enrico yells out “we leave some for the birds!” It’s his nice way of saying “don’t try and be a big shot, get down from there before you hurt yourself and I am involved in some complicated litigation for medical expenses.” What a guy.

SO WHAT IS WWOOFING?!

This video is our entry into the WWOOF Canada 2013 Video Competition. The task is to make a video that shows what WWOOF is all about. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms, and it is only because of this wonderful venture that we have been able to travel the world and share it with you all.

If you could hit the thumbs up ‘like’ button on the video on Youtube, you will be helping us to win the competition, and at this point in our journey the prize money would make a huge difference! Your help would be very greatly appreciated!

GEGANTS I CAPGROSSOS

One last La Merce video from our time in Barcelona. This one is of the ‘Gegants I Capgrossos’ or ‘Giants and Big Heads’! The parade involved giants walking the streets, all to converge on an old castle they entered. The event had a magical air, and also a very good sense of fun. The kids were excited to throw confetti at people, but the adults also took the opportunity to be silly and have a laugh. All in all, Barcelona knows how to have a good time!

BARCELONA FC

While in Barcelona it felt only appropriate to get to a Barcelona FC match. Apparently under the reign of Franco the colours of the Catalan people were banned from being displayed in public, so the Barcelona FC strip took on a heightened significance as a symbol of Catalonian pride. I attended expecting louts behaving badly, this was european football after all! But turns out I was thinking of English football. You could not buy alcohol, everyone filed in just before kick off, watched the artistry of Barcelona FC as they destroyed Real Sociedad 4-1, then just as quickly went home. So darn civilised! I’ve honestly never been to a sporting fixture quite like it! The video is just a little way to share the experience with all my football crazy friends back home.