Back in Buzz-ness

OUR NEW FRIENDS: Not sure if I shared this on the blog yet, but over winter we lost both of our hives. And by 'lost' I don't mean they went missing. They died. Needless to say, we were all very sad about it.

We're not sure if it was mites, if they starved, if they froze ... but they didn't winter over. That's not all that uncommon, unfortunately. But we were hoping our bees would make it.

We have ordered a new 'nuc' (nucleus colony) of bees, to be picked up in early May, but during these recent sunny days, I find myself missing having bees buzzing all about our yard. 

A couple of weeks ago, Christian had the foresight to post an offer on a couple of neighborhood social media sites. He told people if they see a swarm of bees in their yard, to give him a call and he'd come and try to remove them. (He explained that a swarm would look like a football sized ball of bees on a tree or other object.)

Well, yesterday, while we were working in the yard, someone contacted him about a swarm they had in their yard - less than a mile from our house!

Christian sped over there with a box and his bee keeping gear. Fortunately, the bees were conveniently located in the shrub in the foreground of the photo below.   
With no trouble at all, Christian got the ball of bees to drop into his box. He left it on site for a couple of hours, so that bees who didn't drop along with the rest of the ball could find their way to their group. At nightfall, he picked up the swarmed hive and brought it to our house.

We're so happy to have them here! I loved hearing the sound of a hive doing its thing! Music to our ears!

Today, Christian placed some of the frames from our previous bees' efforts into the new guys' home. 

 As you can see, they took to them right away.

Some of the frames are pretty moldy, but from what Christian has read, the new crew will clean the up in no time. 

 It will be interesting to check on these frames in a couple of weeks. 

 Aren't they beautiful?!

PORKER:  We have a new friend in the neighborhood. Last night, a neighbor about a mile away asked for people's help feeding her pet pig, Pancakes. 

We always have a compost pail full of scraps, and a lot of them seem like something a pig might find palatable. Things like mango rinds, strawberry tops, a couple of past-prime hard-boiled eggs, some nearly welting lettuce.

Turns out Pancakes was most appreciative.

Also, I think Pancakes is grossly overweight. Her belly nearly scrapes the ground when she walks. I'm not sure Pancakes needs as much food as her owner thinks she does. But what do I know about pigs?

There were also cute baby chicks on site, and multiple pitbulls. Quite the collection of pets. ...

THE REAL DEAL: So here I go, writing about these cookies again. At least twice previously, I've blogged about the DoubleTree chocolate chip cookies. They first caught our attention because they were baked on the International Space Station back in January of this year.

We ordered some tins of them for fun, and have since baked a copycat recipe, which was divine!

However, just last week, DoubleTree by Hilton came out with a press release entitled "For the First Time, DoubleTree by Hilton Reveals Official Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe so Bakers Can Create the Warm, Welcoming Treat at Home."

That's a long title and a lot of capital letters, so it must be a Big Deal, ha ha. We decided to give the official version a go.

Here's a little video about the recipe release.


The verdict? They're good. Really good! But I actually preferred the copycat recipe. Maybe because it had even more chocolate chips?

What's funny is when we made the copycats, Annabelle said, "I know this is going to be a controversial opinion, but I think they have too many chocolate chips."

As if there was such a thing. 

By the way, a lot of companies are doing that during the stay home portion of this pandemic. For instance, Disney has been releasing favorite recipes from their theme parks, including their Dole whip and their churro tots.

We've never had either of those in person, but we'll probably put the recipes to the test just for fun during this *&#%^$ pandemic.