National Honey Day

 

This Saturday is National Honey Bee Day. Honey bees are really important to our environment. They pollinate most of our crops – the things you eat. Here in California the farmers rent bees every spring to pollinate almonds, peaches, cherries, and a lot of other fruits.  

Almost all honey bees you see on flowers are female worker bees. They only live 5-6 weeks. Throughout their short life they have different jobs as they get older. They start out helping in the hive feeding baby bees (larva) making new cells, fanning their wings to keep the hive cool, and taking care of the queen. After a couple weeks they go out as hunter/gatherers. They look for new patches of flowers and report back to the hive. They do a little dance that tells everyone where to find them, and how far away the flowers are. Once the other bees have all the information they need, the hurry to the flower to collect as much sweet flower nectar as they can. They also collect pollen in special sacs on their legs. Both the pollen and the nectar become food for the colony. Everybody shares. Wow, what good bees they are! Some of the nectar is turned into honey so they have enough to eat in the winter. This is where we get our honey from.

Another important bee is the Queen. She stays home and runs the hive while laying lots of eggs that will grow into new worker bees. She is the queen because she eats food called royal jelly. The male is called a drone. Drones are only around during the spring. They don’t live very long.

Honey is the sweet, golden, stick stuff that bee keepers harvest in the fall. They don’t take it all so the bees have enough to live through the winter. It has different tastes, depending on what kind of flower the nectar comes from. Most honey in the store is clover honey. To get the best tasting honey, look for local honey at farmers markets or from local bee keepers. It’s the freshest and tastes so yummy!

Just be sure to not eat it all at one time.
Too much honey might give you a tummy ache. Also, you might end up like Pooh Bear and run out! Always save some for others.

"Bears love honey and I'm a Pooh bear
So I do care, so I'll climb there
I'm so rumbly in my tumbly
A time for something sweet"

(The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh)

Hope you like our bee talk!

Love Papaw.

Fun & Games

 

Games in various forms have been around for a long time. One of the oldest known board games called “Senet” comes from ancient Egypt nearly 4000 years ago. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senet). There are probably older sport like games. Everybody seems to like at least one game.

What is your favorite? Now days everyone seems to be busy playing video games, but I still like the old board games too. When I was growing up we often played Monopoly, Sorry, and Candy Land. My brother and I loved to play a game called Battleship. We would get to say, “You sunk my battleship!”  (Ask your parents. They can explain it to you.) My mother really likes to play Uno. My grandparents liked to play various card games and a game with dice called Yahtzee. We would play that for hours!

One thing I recommend is that you take time to play something that someone else likes and not just your favorites. It helps you to be a good friend. Here are some hints to help game playing stay fun & exciting.

1. Be a good loser. We can’t win every time so be excited when others win.

2. Be a good winner. Don’t rub it in. Don’t brag. No one likes that.

3. Make sure you take care of your games. Pick up all the pieces and put them away carefully when you are done. (Also, don’t eat peanut butter and jelly on your games.)

4. Make sure you let others choose the game sometimes. Play a game you’re not good at to help you learn.

5. Try to play several kinds of games. Be sure to play ones that make you think and choose. Its good for your brain.

6. Thank the person(s) for playing. It’s always good to be thankful.

So what game do you want to play? Maybe I can join you when I come visit.

Love Papaw

National Watermelon Day

 

Today, August 3, is National Watermelon Day. They are so common that no summer picnic would be complete without those juicy, sweet slices. There are over 100 varieties of watermelons. Part of the gourd family of plants, they originally came from Africa. The can be long or round. They are grown all over the world. They can be seedless or have black striped seeds and come in many colors like red, pink, or even yellow. The yellow ones are my favorite because I think they taste like honey. Here’s one that papaw grew in his garden. It was amazing! You almost think it will taste like lemon, but it still tastes like watermelon.

Watermelons have several nutrients like vitamin C and amino acids, and are full of water (I mean they are called watermelon) which can help you stay hydrated on a hot day. The seeds can even be roasted and eaten.

Sometimes people turn watermelons into works of art. They can be carved to make melon ball baskets. In Japan, they put them in molds so that they can have square watermelons! I guess they stack better.

     

So what kind of watermelon do you like? If you see it at your next picnic, be sure to eat a piece for me!

Love Papaw

 

Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

Cheese – We put it in or on all kinds of things. We have it in our mac & cheese. We put it on hamburgers and call them cheeseburgers.  We melt it and pour it over chips and call them nachos. It goes with ham, turkey, and beef. At the ball park it pairs with chili on top of French fries.  It’s in lasagna, pizza, fondue, and au gratin potatoes. (You might call them cheesy potatoes for short.) It goes with crackers, with wine, and of course, covering broccoli! It’s even good all by itself.

It is estimated that there are almost 2000 kinds of cheeses around the world. A Google search told me that on average, every American eats about 42lbs of cheese each year. That’s a lot of cheese! Cheese can be white, yellow, orange, or even white with blues swirls. It can be hard and brittle like parmesan,  solid but sliceable like cheddar, smooth and silky like American cheese (the kind that are slices covered in plastic wrap) or even soft and squishy like the French cheese like brie.

Have you ever wondered how cheese is made? All cheese start with one thing. Some kind of milk. Many come from cows, but they can also be made from goats, buffalo, and other animals. Each animal milk gives the cheese a special flavor.

1. The process starts with adding a “starter culture” (a type of good bacteria) to acidify and flavor the milk.

2. Next an enzyme called rennet is added to the milk to help it clump together. This separates it into two parts: curds (the protein solids) and whey (the leftover liquid).

3. The curds are cut drained and pressed to remove even more whey. The whey is often used to make protein powder.

4. The curds are shaped in molds and sent away to age. This adds flavor and texture.

5. If the cheese is eaten right away it is called squeaker cheese because it makes a squeaking sound when you bite it. Otherwise it might age for 30, 60, 0r even 90 days.

There are many popular cheeses in America. Cheddar is one of my favorites on hamburgers. Swiss cheese has a nutty taste and lots of funny holes. I also really like pepper jack, and Colby cheese. There are even stinky cheeses like limburger, but Papaw doesn’t really like those.

What is your favorite cheese? If you ever get to visit a cheese shop, be sure to try as many as you can. Well I hope you liked finding out about cheese. Here are a couple videos if you want to watch people making cheese.

 Love Papaw.

   

 

National Ice Cream Month

 

Guess what? July is National Ice Cream Month. It was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The third Sunday of July, which falls on July 20th this year, is also National Ice Cream Day. Ice cream goes back a long way, back to the ancient Persians and Chinese. Its current form is credited to the French and Italians during the Renaissance. That was even before your parents were born (the 1300s-1500s).

Ice cream comes in lots of flavors. Some are classic, like vanilla and chocolate. Others are trendy like moose tracks and peanut butter overload.  If you go to Baskin Robbins they say they have 31 different flavors. You could even go to a place like Cold Stone where they will mix whatever flavors you want. You can get nuts, sprinkles, cookies pieces, or even gummies in your ice cream.

When Papaw was young my favorite place to go on a warm summer night was Dairy Queen. We would usually get an ice cream cone that was dipped in chocolate that made a hard shell on the outside. There was creamy ice cream inside and crunchy chocolate outside. Yum! Once in a while we even made banana splits. Have you ever had a banana split? They’re great!

When Mema and Papaw can find them, we now like to get waffle cones. It is a crispy waffle cone with whatever ice cream inside that you want. And don’t forget the whipped cream! We can’t go to Disneyland without getting at least one! So what kind of ice cream do you like? If you clean your rooms, do your chores, and don’t talk back to your mother, they might just take you out for some ice cream. (Tell them Papaw recommends it as a great family fun night. Just don’t send him the bill!)

I hope you liked our talk about ice cream. I did! Now let’s go look in the freezer…

Love Papaw.

It’s Summer!

 

Summer is finally here, and it’s a time for families to do things together. Some go fishing or camping. Others like to go on a hike in the woods or even explore museums or zoos in your city. You could go to a water park or make one in your own back yard. There are a lot of choices that you and your family can talk about. What every you do as a family, make sure you participate so that you can enjoy everything. Here are some summer fun hints that can help you to have a great time and less stress.

• Be patient – sometimes it takes a little while to get where you are going. Asking, “Are we there yet?” every 10 minutes will not help it go faster.

• Share – make sure everyone gets a turn at the fun.

• Be present – Put your phone, Switch, Kindle, or whatever devices you have and enjoy being with each other. They can be great while you’re travelling in the car, but when you get to your destination, tune in!

• Be Creative – help turn your back yard into a water park (be sure to get your parent’s permission!)
• Focus on the fun and not stuff – It’s fun to buy things on a vacation, but don’t go overboard. Sometimes a simple ice cream cone with the family is better than expensive toys that break all too soon.

• Be sure to say thank you – that your parent, the park ranger, the person in the store, even the people cleaning up. They all helped you have a good time.

Well, that’s all for now. Have a great summer!

Love Papaw.

Jumping What?

 

Here in the central Valley of California, we have many strange and unusual things. Every year at about this time, for only a few weeks, we see a fascinating event that I want to share with you, jumping galls. Galls are strange formations that form on the leaves of trees when an insect damages the leaf tissue. Think of it as a “forest pearl”. Pearls form when something like a grain of sand or other debris irritates an oyster and it forms a hard shell around the object. In the same way, when the insect lays an egg in the leaf, the tree starts to grow a protective area around it. They can come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. Some can be as big as a baseball; others look like tiny little seeds. Here is a picture of the many kinds we can see.

My favorite one is very small. The gall is about the size of the letter “o”. The wasp is about ½ the size of a mosquito. It contains the wasp larva of the jumping oak gall wasp. They look like a little white worm. When it’s ready, it starts to wiggle, and the gall falls to the ground. Then the larva starts to make it bounce! It can jump over a centimeter high, and twice as long. Sometimes, if there are enough of them, it can sound almost like it is raining! Scientists believe that they are trying to get under the leaf litter to get out of the summer heat and so that birds or ants don’t eat them. As fall begins, they form a pupa and rest through the winter. They stay there until early spring, and then they break out and fly away. Here are a couple videos of them jumping. 

     

If you would like to read more about galls, here some cool websites.

https://www.redding.com/story/life/2022/08/05/what-causes-jumping-oak-galls-valley-oaks/10174690002/

Jumping Galls in Chico, CA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr43HNXNsbI

That’s all for now!

Love, Papaw.