Rosewater and Lavender Cookies, oh my!

Spring is one of my favorite times of year, so many wild edibles around us. One of my favorite things this time of year is Rosewater and Lavender cookies! The taste of these cookies is so good! Also impresses when you have to bring something to that perfect day with the ladies or a garden party. Hey even the guys like these too!  

 I recently made these for work as one of our garden loving staff members was retiring. I'll include the recipe below, they are very easy to make too! Just make sure the pan is cool so they will rise well.

Lavender Rosewater Cookies

2 eggs

1/2 cup of butter or margarine

1 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of lavender leaves

1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Confectionery Sugar

Rosewater (I purchased some at a health food store)

Violet or Johnny Jump-up flower

Preheat your oven to 375*f. Put eggs mixed, butter softened (or margarine), sugar and lavender into a bowl. Mix very well. You can also use a mixer. Put flour, baking powder and salt into a separate bowl and sift. Add wet ingredients to flour mixture and mix well. Drop tablespoon size dough onto a cookie sheet that you have sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for about 9-11 minutes until the edges are brown. Let cool.

Place some confectionery sugar in a bowl, I add a few drops of rosewater and a few drops of water. You can adjust the taste to your liking, if you want it to taste stronger of rosewater, add more. Add less if you don't want it too strong. Ice the cookies and place a violet flower on top. I press down to make them secure on the cookie. Enjoy!

Oh yes she is!

 

Oh yes she is! It appears our new young queen has bred with the drones! I expected her to go out on her mating flight and it looks like she did! Her abdomen is full of eggs and she is ready to go! I'll check her in a couple of days to make sure she is laying eggs. I tried to see but I forgot my little flashlight that helps me see deep down in those cells.

This was our queen just 10 days ago, not bred yet. You can see the abdomen isn't full like the picture above. Now fingers crossed that she will begin to lay eggs and expand the hive quickly!

Little Chunker!

"Azure's" little chunker is 12 days old! Those little eyes opened! 

This baby angora bunny is the size of a 3 week old bunny! I guess being the only baby gave him a big selection of nipples! The jury is in on it's color as we don't know the sex yet, a blue tort! We have never had a blue tort so that's exciting! Lets see just how big this baby geets, it's sure getting off to a great start!

 

Hail the new Queen!

While inspecting this crazy nuc that I got some weeks back, it appeared they had more queen cells. I found a queen cell with an emerging queen and quickly put in a nuc box and closed it up. I gave them 2 days to get acclimated with what I thought was their new queen and went up today to let her out for her mating flight. I found this queen cell that was not the one I had put the frame in the box for, with what appears to be an emerged queen from it.

This was the queen cell I had originally seen in swarm position, where the other queen cell was in the superseder position. I found her deceased as if they just ignored her sadly.

Here is the virgin queen, they were nurturing her. You can tell because her abdomen is not full of eggs. They are fattening her up and getting her ready for her breeding flight. She will leave the hive just one time to breed with anywhere from 8 to 10 drones. These drones will sacrifice their life for the chance to breed just one time and then they will die.

 This image even defines her better and shows her attendants ready for her every need. I'm hoping this is the end of that nuc wanting to split! I'm running out of hives! 

Get them for Mother's Day!

 Get your farm fresh eggs for Mother's Day! Make mom a delicious breakfast from eggs laid just that day! Can't get fresher than that!

You can call us on the farm line @ 203-881-1986 or stop by @ 156 Punkup Rd, Oxford, CT

We will have them in a cooler out front for contactless pick up!

A little Spring surprise!

To say we were not expecting this is an understatement! But here it is! A single fat little baby English Angora rabbit! I went into Azure's cage the other day who we have thought for a few years now to be infertile along with Wally our one testicle rabbit. Well I guess not! These two have spent time together over the years and never a thing, until yesterday when I went in to feed Azure, and she kept wanting to show me something on her bed, and there it was!

This very healthy single baby which I believe is an Opal in color! Which was Azure's grandfather Fluffer! Spring surprises at every corner I guess!

 

What's that in the incubator?

Last week we took a trip to another farm to pick up a very special package! 

They are a bit bigger than a regular egg! 

They went right into the incubator which was on and regulated when we returned!

 Hatch time appears to be 28 days, so with any luck we will answer the question, what is that in the incubator?