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This Month's Special Priced Items
Special
pricing through March & April
Complimentary
votive's with orders over $25
| Monthly
Drawing
One
Pair of 9 inch hand dipped beeswax candles are mailed
out at every issue 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 - check for
your name each month)
Tell
your friends about our farm. All
they have to do is to subscribe to our bi- monthly
on-line newsletter to be eligible.
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
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Wicks
for 6 pairs of candles are on a frame and dipped
into hot wax.
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6
pairs of candles half finished.
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The
frame is split in half & only 3 pairs are now
dipped.
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The
candles are hanging in a rack to cool between dips.
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few notes about our format:
Although
our newsletter has a "overview" of every
article in the issue, a
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.
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| "After
two years in Washington, I often long for the realism
and sincerity of Hollywood."
Fred Thompson, Speech before the Commonwealth Club
of California
US Senator, 1994-2002, actor
The
Quotations Page |
Find
out more....
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Greetings!
Our
Bi-Monthly newsletter will keep you up to date on farm
activities & candles sales as they occur.
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.
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| At
the Vineyard |
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Pruning
season is in late March, new vines are ordered
Click
here to go directly to our Winter Vineyard Report.
The
pruning and planting season in the vineyard will be starting
real soon.
The
day after Easter, March 28th, we have about 20 high school
youths that are out of school for their spring break out
to the vineyard to prune and plant. We will have
more pictures of their work in our next newsletter.
Click
here for pictures of last years crew......
More
vines have been ordered. Due to the demand from
our customers we are planting 6 more rows of red and white
grapes for juice and wine.
This
is a site that just contacted us that looks quite interesting.
It
has hundreds of links to other winemaking sites and articles
such as:
Wine Enthusiast - Ultimate wine accessories site!
Ancient Wine Making
Beer And Wine Making & supplies
Fruit Wine Making
Grape Wine Making
History Of Wine Making
Making A Wine Cellar
Making A Wine Rack
Making Red Wine Vinegar
Making Wine Labels
Wine Making Kits
and a whole lot more.
Visit
them at www.winemaki
nghq.com
Early
Spring Grape Recipe - Cato's Grape Bread
A
unique bread made with grape juice!
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Click
here for the recipe |
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| Making
Red Wine at the Farm - (Continued) |
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Finishing
& bottling
This
is a continuation of a story that we started in September
2003 - showing how we make wine at our farm.
September
2003 - Many years we are so busy, and the
grapes are sold so quickly we tend to take whatever is left
for our own wine. This year I decided that I wanted
some Baco-Foch red wine so I had some picked before our
customers picked them first.
Fall
- 2004 - Sandy Paetz, our MSU wine
student (just a kid in his 50's), and I were sampling some
of the wine and decided that it needed some treatment.
The wine was a little high in acid to taste. (I did not
really measure it like I should of - but tested it by tasting.)
We decided to treat the wine with Calcium Carbonate to reduce
the acid and also add some ground oak chips for a little
oak flavor.
March
2005 - The wine is now ready to bottle. The two 10 gallon
carboys are racked the final time and blended together.
The
finished product. This wine ended up being a nice light
red wine of about 11% alcohol.
Bully
Hill Vineyards makes a very nice red wine called "Bulldog
Baco" - Maybe that is what we will call this wine.
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Click
here for the whole story. |
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| At
the Honey Farm |
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Checking
colonies, Winter damage, Raising new queens
Click
here to go directly to our Early Spring Honey Farm Report.
This
is the time of year we check are colonies to see how they
over wintered. The long cold winter along with
the continuing problem with varroa mites has caused more
than 50% loss this winter. (10-15% is normal)
We
found one yard that only 2 of 20 were alive, so
we decided to use one of the remaining hives (it was very
strong) as a queen mother for our breeding program. We will
use her daughters to make new hives in May to replace losses.
We hope her winter survival traits can be passed along to
future colonies.
Spring
Honey Recipes from Honey.com
During
the months of August through November, the National Honey
Board ran the "Honey of a BBQ Tailgating Contest",
in which entrants were encouraged to submit their very best
recipes, suitable for tailgating, which would incorporate
at least 1/3 cup of honey.
Well,
the results are in! In addition to the grand prize winner
pictured above, here are the 31 other recipes that were
semi-finalists and finalists in the contest, listed alphabetically
by the winners' favorite teams.
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Click
here for the recipe |
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| From
our readers |
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This
is a section for comments/questions/recipes from our readers.
Please
read the comments & feel free to put your 2 cents worth
in.
Send me your
comments/questions/recipes!
Visit
the Readers
Comments page to view all the content of these messages.
Here are samples of this months e-mails:
Partylite
Candles, ••
New beekeepers, ••
Wants to plant a few vines, ••
Light colored pillars, ••
Keeping honey from granulating, ••
Growing grapes in Gratiot County Michigan, ••
Reducing acidity, ••
Dipping candles, ••
Making wine in Tennessee, ••
Thanks for the order, ••
Where to get winemaking supplies, ••
from the Director Of The Greyton H. Taylor Wine
Museum
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The
"From our Readers" Page |
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