January at Honeyflow Farm
January candle winner: ahiggins@ec.rr.com	January, 2004 Vol 4 No. 1

in this issue This Month's Special Priced Items This Month in the Candle Shop This Month in the Vineyard This Month at the Honey Farm A Year at a Glance From our readers Candle W*nner & Laugh of the Month This Month's Special Priced Items   Special price this month on 2 Very Large Pillars Double Wick Large Hexagon Candle List Price: $27.95 Special Price: $22.40 3 Inch Triple Wick Cylinder Pillar List Price: $22.95 Special Price: $ 18.40   *************   Special pricing through January & February Complimentary votives with orders over $25     One Pair of 9 inch hand dipped beeswax candles are mailed out each month to someone on our mailing list. (If you are receiving this message you are on our list and may soon receive a pair of candles) Tell your friends about our farm. All they have to do is to subscribe to our monthly on-line newsletter. In addition, every week in September we will also be giving away a bushel of grapes if you also subscribe to our September Weekly Picking Update. Tell your friends to SUBSCRIBE NOW           Candle Dipping at Honeyflow Farm Wicks for 6 pairs of candles are on a frame and dipped into hot wax.   6 pairs of candles half finished. The frame is split in half & only 3 pairs are now dipped.   The candles are hanging in a rack to cool between dips.   The finished product.         A few notes about our format: Although our newsletter has a "overview" of every article in the issue, a recent survey has shown us that we have two distinct and separate interest groups, a grape and winemaking group and a honey and candle group. Many of the articles in this newsletter have all the text included but sometimes, due to the length, we need to continue the article on a separate page on our website. We have developed our "Vineyard Report" and our "Candle/Honeyfarm Report" to conform to the specific interests of our readers.         5 lb Un-processed Honey - $13.00 Have one shipped to you.           "I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago" Will Rogers The Quotations Page     Visit our Candle Shop

Greetings! Happy New Year Our family, Bill, Pat, Mary & Elizabeth, along with Andrea, Jeff, Maggie, Hannah and NEW BABY- WILLIAM EDWARD PERRY (In New Jersey) sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas and the very best in this new year 2004. Our monthly newsletter will keep you up to date on farm activities as they occur.   Although the U-Pick part of our farm is only open September to Mid October - our website is open all year!   At our Candle Shop you can purchase candles and honey products any time you wish.   In answering questions and in preparing this newsletter our newsletter archive has become a valuable source of material. It may answer many of the questions you have about honey, candles, wine making or about our farm. Click here to view past issues of our newsletter. This Month in the Candle Shop    Candle Making, Bloom Survery, Changes to our WebSite In January we continue with a lot of candle making. We are also checking our catalogs for new types of candles to make - Do you have any ideas of things that you would like? Please let me know. Last month we conducted a bloom survey. The results of the survey showed that the majority of people liked the Candle Luster applied to the decorative candles to protect them and enhance their looks. From now on we are going to apply Candle Luster to all our decorative candles and add the "bloom look" as an option. The standard tapers and cylinders are not affected at all. ********************** We are going to make many changes to the Candle Shop E-Commerce portion of our site. In the past we have used a service called "Bigstep" which handles our "E-Commerce Store". We have just purchased a new program called "Quikstore" that is installed on our server. This will allow us to do a lot of new things. There will be more accurate shipping charges (UPS and USPS will actually figure them for us and automatically enter it on your invoice), much more flexibility on the look of pages, and a comprehensive "search" portion of the program where you can search for whatever kind of candle you wish. It may take us a few months to get it up and running and all the info transfered, but until it is done the old program will still be in place. ********************** Download our 30 page catalog with over 90 images. It has every item sold on our site. This pdf file can be saved on your computer. You can print the catalog and order through the US Mail if you wish, although it is still much easier to do it on line. Download the New Candle Catalog This Month in the Vineyard    Vineyard in January, MSU Program - Fruit Maturity   Not much happening in the vineyard in January. We have had some warm weather around Christmas and I hope we gradually get colder rather than some rapid changes. That is what caused all the vine damage last year. ********************** Sandy Paetz just sent me an update about what he is doing at the MSU Viticulture & Enology Program. This program was brought to our attention a few years ago when a MSU student, Bernard Call, who is taking this course, purchased some grapes at our farm and was carefully measuring the brix of the grapes with a refractometer. The following year he returned to our farm after being in the program for one year and he was very enthusiastic, interesting and knowledgeable about the course. Sandy Paetz, one of our past Sales Stand Associates, had also enrolled in the MSU program. When the two of them found out that they both were taking the courses, the conversations became very stimulating and they agreed to forward some of their program notes to us for our newsletter. We have some inside stories of what Bernard and Sandy are doing at MSU. Here is one of Sandy's latest papers: Grape Sampling and Fruit Maturity Evaluation More details about the MSU program .....   ********************** January grape recipe - Solera Mushroom Soup The key to this soup is St. Julian's award-winning Solera Cream Sherry. From St. Julian Wine Co., Michigan Click here for the recipe ......     This Month in the Vineyard This Month at the Honey Farm    January at the Honey Farm, A new interesting site to look at, Bees key to Defense sting operations, January Honey Recipe The Honey Farm is quiet this time of the year, The honeybees are in their hives and keeping warm - just like people do in the winter. A new interesting site to look at: A Thousand Great Places to Bee on the Web!! This is a great place to look for beekeeping information. ********************** Bees key to Defense sting operations from dcmilitary.com Training animals to perform certain tasks ranges widely from force protection to entertainment. Researchers long ago realized dogs have an acute sense of smell and can be trained to detect bombs and drugs. Pet owners learned relatively recently they can train a dog to open the refrigerator, grab a beer and return to the couch so the human won't miss a moment of Monday Night Football -- a talent worthy of late night television talk show host David Letterman's segment "Stupid Pet Tricks." The rest of the story ...... **********************   January Honey Recipe - Whipped Cream Plus Adding honey instead of sugar to whipped cream will make it taste better and stay firm longer. The following variations are based on using 2 cups of cream and 1/2 cup honey.  The recipes ...... This Month at the Honey Farm A Year at a Glance    All of our Newsletter articles in 2003   Honey and Candles Vineyard Jan 2003 Wrapping colonies for winter Increase in Honey Prices MSU Course in Viticulture & Enology - Sandy Paetz January Grape Recipe - Chicken Salad Fe b 2003 Candle Burning Tips February at the Honey Farm Raw Honey? February Honey Recipe February in the Vineyard Bernard Call's MSU Story Good Websites to Check Out February Grape Recipe March 2003 Candle Decorating Styles New Products World's Famous Beekeepers? March Honey Recipe SWEET & SPICY DIP Wine Judging - Varieties Northern Wineworks - Book ReviewAre there Turkeys Eating you Grapes? Winebarrel Plus March grape recipe - DELICIOUS GRAPES April 2003 Usefull Candle Tips Add a GIFT Card to your Order Bee Colony Winter Losses April Honey Recipe PUPPY CHOW Pruning Time in the Vineyard Wine Judging - Wine FaultsInteresting links April Grape recipe - PASTA SALAD WITH GREEN GRAPES May 2003 Surving the Ice Storm with Candles - Installing Package Bees May Honey Recipe - Roast Turkey with Honey Cranberry Relish Ice Storm - Pruning the vineyard - New vines planted MSU Course in Viticulture & Enology May grape recipe - Grape Gumdrops June 2003 New Candle Catalog Making splits & checking colonies Pollination Month June Honey recipe - Orange Cream Spread New vines & grow tubes Grape buds are growing MSU Course in Viticulture & Enology Interesting articles to check out June grape recipe - Carmalized Grapes July/ August 2003 Shedding Light on the Candle's History Checking colonies, Comb honey supers July Honey recipe Rosemary-Infused Honey & Apple-Honey Facial Toner Bloom in the Vineyard Try rose wine this year New products this fall Understanding Grape Berry Development July Grape Recipe - Curried Chicken Salad with Grapes Sep t 2003 Candle Safety Tips The Honey harvest is starting Raw & Unprocessed Honey? Unfiltered Honey? Pasteurized Honey? Whats the difference? Mead Makers September Honey recipe Harvest season at the Vineyard New Grape Pails Grape Juice COMMODITY PRICES Protecting the grapes from the birds Tips from Winemaker Magazine Our trip to Bully Hill winery Mead Makers September grape recipe Oct 2003 National Candle Association The Honey Harvest Continues The Importance of Bees in Wartime Boy Bees Have No Dads October Honey recipe From Our Readers Candle Winner & Laugh of the Month Harvest season at the Vineyard Grape Pails New winemaking booklet Do we need a frost? Interview Chemical in red wine may contribute to longer life Grapevine Nurseries October grape recipe From Our Readers Candle Winner & Laugh of the Month Nov 2003 From Flower to Flame The Honey Harvest Continues Bees in Wartime Part II November Honey Recipe From Our Readers Candle Winner & Laugh of the Month Vineyard season is over Winemaking Pictorial Chateau Valerio The "Winemakers" Novel November grape recipe From Our Readers Candle Winner & Laugh of the Month Dec 2003 5 New Items for Christmas Bloom or No Bloom Honey Harvest is Completed Free Book The Christmas Stocking December Honey Recipe From Our Readers Lapeer Concert Choir Candle Winner & Laugh of the Month Vineyard is closed for the season New Uncorked Magazine Reducing Acidity December Grape Recipe From Our Readers Lapeer Concert Choir Candle Winner & Laugh of the Month From our readers    This is a section for comments/questions/recipes from our readers. Please read the comments & feel free to put your 2 cents worth in. Visit the Readers Comments page to view all the content of these messages. Here are samples of this months e-mails:   Weight of the 12 inch pillars?  ••   Straining honey,  ••  Lead Free Wicks?  ••  Candle Information Sheets The "From our Readers" Page Candle W*nner & Laugh of the Month    Congratulations! January candle w*nner is: ahiggins@ec.rr.com Will this months w*nner, ahiggins@ec.rr.com please contact us and so that I can ship your candles. Our list of previous candle w*nners.   Click below for something silly to end this newsletter with. See You Next Month! Laugh of the month: The System is Down

::   ::  visit our site phone: 810-796-2344