So, umm, yeah, I’m a bit behind writing this Thankful Thursday post! But sometimes “life” happens and things like vacation and summer fruit harvest are more important than writing a blog post 🙂 Things have been INSANELY busy here on the homestead since I got home from vacation on June 20th!
About 3 days after arriving home, I came down with a mild cold and it happened at the same time our Japanese (aka Santa Rosa) and Green Gage plum trees were ready to have their first set of fruit harvested. Thankfully, they didn’t drop too much fruit while I was resting and it has been a great harvest so far. Here’s a bit more about what I was thankful for in June,
1. Maui, Maui, Maui!! I am extremely grateful for the time my husband and I had together exploring and relaxing on this beautiful island. I had been once before, for a very short (3 day) visit about 17 years ago. Since we were there almost 3 weeks, we got to explore almost every part of the island. Here’s some pictures of this amazing place!
Keanae Landing with the Road to Hana in the distance
View of Puohokamoa Falls from the Garden of Eden Arboretum
Three Bears Falls located right off Hana highway
Pa’iloa Beach in Hana
Above the clouds at 10,023 feet at the Haleakala Summit
Sliding Sands Trail at Haleakala. We were only able to do about 2 miles because the sun was setting and the ranger said it takes double the time to walk back up the hill at the high elevation. They weren’t kidding, it was so slow going back uphill!
Lovely Napili Bay, we stay at this location for 5 days. The snorkeling was great in this sheltered cove! Here’s the Napili Bay Studio Condo we rented in case you want to visit someday!
One of the many stunning sunsets enjoyed from our lanai in Wailea,
Mokapu Beach in front of Andaz, our last location of our trip. We stayed there for 6 days!
Snorkeling with the sea turtles at “Turtle Town”
Pretty palms!
The last sunset of our trip
2. I’m thankful both of our flights to and from Maui were uneventful and safe, Hawaiian Airlines did not disappoint!
3. I’m happy for the 10 apricots that came from our very small tree. 
4. I’m grateful for the sticky mess I experienced while I processed my first ever batch of honey! It was a fun experience but it is VERY messy! The frames had been sitting in my garage fridge since Verbena colony absconded in February. I needed to clear it out to make room for the upcoming fruit harvest. Here’s a few pictures of the “old fashion processing.”
An almost full frame of capped honey
I had to scrape off the capped part. They make a tool for this but I didn’t have time to get one so I did my best and scrapped it off with a butter knife 🙂
This is the giant colander full of honey with some comb in it. The “process” is to let it slowly drip out into the bowl underneath. I kept it in my oven at 100 degrees to help it drip easily. After that, I did a second “strain” with a mesh colander to filter out any smaller pieces of comb, then I poured it into jars.
The finished product!
5. I was excited to see how much my garden had grown in three weeks. My black beans were growing well, the watermelon radish sprouted, and I spotted my first Japanese cucumber!
Black beans in the center and Watermelon Radish in the upper right corner.
My first cucumber!
6. I am so thankful for our big, beautiful Japanese Plum tree and our two Green Gage trees for giving us such an amazing bounty of fruit each year. The total harvest this season of Japanese plums was 44 pounds and Green Gage was 33 pounds!
My first batch of Green Gage plums
My first batch of Japanese plums
Part of the batch of Japanese plums ready to go into my Excalibur dehydrator to make fruit roll ups, sweetened with my honey!
A homemade plum fruit roll up!
7. Finally, I am so enormously grateful for my renewed health! It was truly awesome to have a vacation and not even think about Lyme AT ALL. My shortness of breath is one thing I still experience. I’ve purposely been holding off on writing my 6 month Infusio update until after I have a follow-up. I have my follow-up scheduled and will have my 6 month update posted by the end of the month. I also hope to have Madison’s 3 month follow up soon.
What were you thankful for in June? Share with me!
P.S – Summer is super busy around here so I’ll be taking a break from Thankful Thursday’s until October. Have a wonderful summer and don’t forget to be thankful!
Honeychick Homestead 
July 10, 2015 at 6:48 pm
Would love to taste your fruit roll up….looks yummy!