60 liters of pure, caramel hony/hunig/honig/hunang/knēkós

Written to Castaways and Cutouts by The Decemberists

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

- William Shakespeare

Lone arrived from Denmark on Friday, October 28, after 18 days of relaxing with her family…and most of ours. An altogether positive experience.

Adding to the positiveness of Lone's arrival, we had scheduled a visit from Jeff and Suzanna, aka the Jones. Unfortunately, as they are now gainfully employed, we could not leave São Paulo until well past nightfall, though that did result in our enjoying a delicious, fully comped meal (it pays to have piglets to barter with restaurant owners) at Serafina, one of our favorite restaurants.

We arrived at Fazenda Alfheim at approx. 03:00, so we took it easy Saturday morning…particularly easy for my part. I crawled out of bed sometime after 11:00. Needless to say, Lone had been up for hours.

As compensation, I agreed to make lunch, a scrumptious leg of Márcio and Heather's lamb, roasted in a bed of chick peas, organic carrots, organic tom cherry tomatoes and organic squash, and bathed in a sauce of olive oil, garlic, fresh spices from our garden and lemon. It looked nearly as good going into the oven as it tasted after coming out. Very, very yummy!

Sunday was dedicated to our third honey harvest, with yours truly as head apprentice, again shepherded by our neighbor Izilda. Jeff manned up and donned a bee suit for the occasion and proved a great help.

In all, a very smooth process…three hours and we had stored seven very heavy boxes of honey for processing that same evening.

In between, Lone dropped Jeff and Suzanna off in Taubaté, where they caught a bus to São Paulo, and me off in S. L. do Paraitinga, where I sorted João severance pay. Alas, despite our many interventions, João's constant indebtedness finally overwhelmed him and he quit work at the end of September. Doubly unfortunate because in addition to being a terrific worker and a generally nice person, there is no rhyme or reason behind his decision. He will certainly earn less wherever he ends up, though at least his severance pay will keep the debt collectors from his door…for a while. A genuine shame.

Sunday evening at 18:00 Lone, Clair, Rosanna and I began processing a bronze/russet/sepia blend of winter honey. Taste: exquisite. While Lone and Rosanna bore the brunt of the work separating the wax in order to free the honey for the centrifuge, Clair and I manned the centrifuge. After a bit of experimenting, I learned that speed is second to technique in extracting the honey. Three hours, 60 liters and a great deal of fun later, we had completed the task, carefully closing up our liquid gold and the room to avoid swarming, bee bandits in search of the fruit of all of their labor.

On Monday Rosanna and I quickly bottled the honey…a rapid process that took less than 45 minutes. Lone was a bit cross with me for not removing the froth from the top of the honey, but after extensive tasting I determined that it was too yummy to waste, although she is certainly right in her assessment that some connoisseurs might not appreciate the visual effect. From my perspective, the rawer, the better.

In other fazenda news, the workers cleared the river banks of grass and weeds…wonderful…and long overdue.

Also, pasture 3, is bursting with a combination of sugar cane and napier. We will have no shortage of either by this time next year…more than enough to feed all of our cows, pigs and chickens.

Finally, an interesting article from the New York Times about A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute…well worth a read.