Down in a ditch

-Posted by Isaac

There are always surprises.

In every job, in every season. The unexpected. This week I spent many (unplanned for) hours on a backhoe. Luckily I have friends in high places and my brother Justin, the grain farmer, lent me this big shovel free of charge. I don't know how much we'd be shelling out if I had to rent... but I do know it would've been in the thousands.

Let me back up. The week started as any typical winter week in Ohio- miserable. 

Upon returning home from Joshua Tree, we caught the last of the snow and cold that you guys had been enduring. Then it heated and soon we found ourselves in a lovely drizzle. Last Sunday I took the opportunity to check a few hives. The girls are looking fine. Enjoying the sudden warmth.

As it turned out, that was the highlight of the week.

We were scheduled for an ODA inspection on Tuesday. Once a year the honey house is inspected by the state. They need to make sure everything is code and up to par. Our "commercial kitchen" status hangs in the balance. Nothing to get excited about, really. We've passed every year with flying colors.

But as luck would have it, Monday threw a wrench in the works. Jayne was cleaning the soap pans and had to dump a large amount of water down the sink. A few seconds later that water was moving across the honey house floor like a small tidal wave. Something was clogged! We had no drainage, it was all backing up, and it stank!

Not ok. ODA inspection tomorrow. 

So I stopped doing whatever I was doing. I can't remember what is was now. The to-do list suddenly had a #1 priority. After about an hour of digging and poking around, I figured out it must've been a frozen outlet or a crushed tile. Maybe a little of both? 

The culprit.

I'm a beekeeper. What do I know about these things?

As I said, my brother thankfully had a backhoe. Thankfully not in use at the moment. And thankfully it started on a thirty degree morning. Barely. We didn't have much time. The water had to flow by high noon on Tuesday.

So I pretty quickly re-learned backhoe language. If you've ever run one of these things, you know the controls are a language of their own. I knew it once, many years ago, and as it turned out it's a little like riding a bike. Anyway, I managed to avoid knocking down the honey house.

Here's my homemade septic tank:

It's just gray water, and we have another septic on out, but I figured that as long as I was digging around, I might as well improve things. But in doing, unfortunately I managed to hit the propane line. Yet another small problem. As fast as I could I jumped off the tractor, jumped the fence into the goat pen and shut off the big tank valve as the air filled with gas.

Called Buckeye Propane. Now their to-do list suddenly had a #1 priority... Don't do anything, they said, we'll be right out.

I was shaking. Time for a cigarette.

An hour and a half, $135 later, we were back in business.

Long story short, I got everything patched up and looking decent. The water was flowing just fine. On Tuesday ODA came and went, none the wiser. 

But we still had a backhoe sitting there... and man that thing is fun.

I thought maybe Justin wouldn't mind if I knock off a few more jobs. Starting with burying that old well in the barnyard. 

My awesome luck continued. About the second big scoop, I hit a water line.

Which normally would be no big deal. Just shut the water off, run to town, buy parts and fix it. But as it turned out, I happened to align my little mishap with the County Health Dept. doing their annual water test. Perfecting timing! 

We try to check off our annual inspections and testing in the same general time frame. Preferably not during the height of bee season. 

Great time to lose water pressure. And no time to run to town. I really didn't want the poor lady to have to make another trip. What to do, what to do? As it turns out, ratchet straps have infinite uses. 

A ratchet strap and a hose clamp- the idea actually worked! At least long enough for the Health Dept. to run the water a few minutes. I often have to pat my own back and call myself a genius. True or not, it helps to keep up the morale. Do you do this too? It works, doesn't it? Nobody's going to do it for you, if you know what I mean.

So Wednesday went by, water test done, old well buried, and the weather continued turning nicer. By Thursday we were actually looking at clear skies and sunshine. On top of it all, we still had the backhoe.

And man, is that thing fun!

I bounced from job to job. By Friday evening I had two new water lines, two new hydrants, a parking lot extension, and seven large trees transplanted. It's fun to play farm. For the past three days Joe Diffie has been rolling through my head. As it turned out, this surprise week was kinda ok.

And it all started with cleaning the soap pans. I don't know what next week will bring, but tomorrow I'm finding a shade tree and an RC Cola.

Joshua Tree

-Posted by Isaac

Got out in the nick of time!

You thought I was just kidding about that professional vacation? No way. This week we had some important business in southern California. A conference with a few of our most high-ranking associates- sunshine and heat. And of course, honey bees.

Here's a short highlight clip from our business trip:

Joshua Tree.

Or J-Tree if you're a cool climber type.

Jayne and I left our three youngest non-hikers, non-climbers with Grandma and boarded the plane last Friday. We escaped the huge barreling snowstorm by the narrowest of margins. Whew!

Mason joined us for the fun.

If you're unfamiliar with Joshua Tree, it's a big climbing mecca. Especially in the winter.

And specifically a style of climbing known as bouldering. 

This is where you grab a crash pad and go find a rock.

A small rock.

You're never more than a few feet off the ground, but sometimes it takes hours or days to figure out how to climb those few feet.

No sherpas needed.

If you compare rock climbing to a mainstream religion (and it is for many people), then bouldering would be Zen Buddhism.

This happened to be my third trip to Joshua Tree in the last two decades, and I've only known the park in a bouldering context. I wanted to show Mason the ropes.

One way to use a slackline...

And of course I wanted to broaden his universe with a new sport. A sport in which his old dad has found some degree of proficiency. Not to brag on myself, but I'm pretty good at it.

Oh no, haha, not the actual bouldering... at that, I'm horrible. I was really bad back in the day, and wouldn't you know it, I still am. Horrible. 

But the climbing is just a small part of the whole. So much of your time, I'm guessing 95%, is spent practicing the subtle yet crucial nuances of the sport:  1. Sitting on your mat.  2. Staring up at the rock.  3. Smoking weed.

At this, I was an expert. Sure, it took some time- honing my skills, refining my technique- but eventually I mastered it. 95% fluent!

And you know what? Get out there! Try it! There's a learning curve to everything. For me, it took two trips with two different groups. But you may pick it up even faster, who knows? In short order, especially if you fall in with the right bunch of dirtbags, you too will be texting and facebooking your climbing adventures to all your friends. 

But this trip wasn't about climbing. Or bouldering. It was about bees.

And after that 30 seconds was completed, it was about hiking.

Hiking through a dry, beautiful, magical spot on Earth.

Onward!

And camping.

Sleeping under the stars is one thing. Sleeping under the stars in the desert is quite another. You've never seen stars like this! It's a light show. Spectacular! I couldn't help it, each night I'd go walking for hours, eyes to the skies. It makes you want to sing. But you don't have to. The coyotes are better at it, and do it for you.

So we camped each night and hiked each day. And took a lot of pictures. Photography is a popular desert sport in its own right. Many models out there.

Jayne has the best shots. If she'd ever do a blog post, you could see them on here. As it is, I think she's planning to share them with the masses on Instagram.

How lame. How shallow. Depriving you, our devoted blog readers of a more comprehensive Honeyrun experience. How callous! Let her know! All three of you. Let her know!

Hiking in the desert requires plenty of water.

And of course, purple hiking socks.

Those socks get stinky. Days later, picking through a crowded gift shop, I found a clean pink and white pair that I thought my Girl would like.

As I contemplated the matter, Mason, standing right next to me, decided to use the blue pair to practice his out-loud reading skills. 

Heads turned.

I sheepishly had to explain that the boy really doesn't like gift shops. He's just not a shopper!

He's a climber.

The boy needs rocks, not socks.

In fact, he loved it so much, I'm thinking that one day, possibly, he may even be able to hang with his old man.

At least 95% of the time.

Round two

-Posted by Isaac

What a difference a week makes.

We've gone from this:

To this:

And what a mood shift! For the bees and beekeeper both. It's amazing what twenty degrees can do for one's outlook on life.

This week I got the lead out. Hustling along, checking up on almost everybody. 

At first, with temps still in the 20's, just feeding.

This was the second round on the patties. (AP23 Winter Patties from Dadant, in case you were wondering.)

The first round went on before that long lasting arctic blast made us miserable. Maybe only 10% of the hives actually got a patty. If I can't see the cluster because the bees are way down beneath their winter stores, I just move on to the next hive. 

After three weeks of nastiness, many of the hives had eaten their way upward. At negative temps, hanging on to life takes a lot of calories.

They are higher now. If I can see bees, they get a patty.

Or two, or seven or eight. Some of these monsters are looking hungry.

This round, maybe 90% of the hives got a least something. Whether they needed it or not. A few dollars of food insurance is not a bad idea. Especially when we're still looking at two months of winter.

And in case you were wondering, no, I don't just throw it in there. A little smoke and a few sticks keeps the squashing to a minimum. 

The bees seem to like the patties more than their own honey. Quite a few looked like the photo below- the food from round one had been completely eaten, but their honey stores were left untouched. This hive still weighed about 90 lbs.

I don't know, it must be good eatin'. I like to take a nibble myself now and then.

As the temperatures climbed and the clusters expanded, it occurred to me that one more shot of oxalic vapor couldn't hurt. The hives are just barely beginning to brood.

Just hoping to clean up any mite trouble I may have missed back in November. Was I a bit early on the first round of acid?

It's going to get cold again. Looking ahead at the weekend weather, we basically were given a gift-- three days of heat. In turn, that meant three days of work. Round two at breakneck pace. A couple of those days extended right on into the night.

Which was fine by me. Enough already of the bad singing and two-bit philosophy. Leave that to the amateurs...

We're professionals here and we've got bees to worry about!

I finished up this afternoon with the last of the oxalic, and it hit me that I've probably only worked thee or four days in the last month. This short but intense stretch was about it. Whew, tough gig this beekeeping.

I'm ready for a professional vacation.

Sleepless pondering

-Posted by Isaac

Well, we made it back home just in time to sing to a packed house.

Just rehearsing here. If you want to see the real thing, come next year!

The cantata is a Christmas eve tradition at the candlelit United Methodist in Williamsport. It's a beautiful moment that seems to send a ripple of joy out into the community. We've been doing it since the beginning of time, and I suppose we'll continue until the end of time. Or until our directors, my mother and sidekick Janet May, decide to hang it up. Which will no doubt coincide with the end of time. I'm comforted in the knowledge that for at least one hour every year I can count on the cantata to serve me up a big slice of genuine Christmas. True joy. I mean it. I've even cried real tears. And it's not even a religious thing, thinking about baby Jesus and all. No, it's more of a community thing. I look out at all those candlelit faces, I feel the music and I'm sort of lost in the moment. It's beautiful. And it's real.

For at least one hour there's nothing fakey about it. 

And then comes Christmas day.

And then comes the day after. We keep at it. More Christmas, more cookies, more crazy kids, late cards, more choir, carols, and definitely, lest we forget, more consumption-- the perfect pissy storm to take that one beautiful moment from a week ago and flush it right down the toilet. We come, we see, we leave a mess.

(Come to think of it, did I just summarize the entire history of Homo sapiens?)

I look around and think wow, I'm in Whoville once again. And once again, I'm the Grinch. That is, I'm the Grinch before his heart expanded three notches. Only, it's the other way around. Just a week ago my heart was big and bursting with love for my fellow man, and now it has not only shrunk past its original form, it's gone to looking like a puny shriveled crabapple. Christmas is taking too long! And you guys are smiling right through it. "Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!" you say with sparkling eyes. And you really seem genuine about it. Serious? Are you actually enjoying this? How do you do it? 

So I think I've come to the inevitable conclusion that it's me, not you. I'm the one with the problems. You all just gang up and make it unbearable this time of year. 

Mix these Whoville problems with the lack of routine, of real bee work, the dark days, the brutal cold, the hard wind making it impossible to work or play outside... It's awful. I really need another trip to the beach about now. But that's not happening. Instead, I'm up at one, two, three in the morning, rolling around, bothering Jayne. Finally I give up, and to my surprise, there's an amazing number pressing things that need attended to: stoking the fire downstairs, building a fire in the shop (something therapeutic about this), checking moisture on the honey drums, checking the cooling room temperature, checking the propane, the kerosene, the diesel core heaters, the softener salt, cleaning the honey house sinks, wiping down the tanks, cleaning filters, arranging buckets, working on the books, feeding the cats, the dog, the chickens, the goats, reading stacks of magazines, reading books, Netflix, Facebook, taking a predawn run through an inky black icebox... What would happen if these important matters were left unaddressed? I'll tell you- the world would stop. And this Mr. Atlas ain't shrugging. On a good night, things get done.

But on a bad night, and lately with Christmas, there have been more than a few, I just lay there staring up through the ceiling. Until I see too much. Mind racing. 

The bees. No visions of sugar plums for this December beekeeper. How fare my darlings? It's brutal out there. The cold, the wind... are they hanging on? Are they ventilated, are they mite free? Enough honey? What about those neonics? What about that July fungicide on the soybeans? Where did all that crap end up? It had to go somewhere.

Are we dealing with something we can't control? Some law of unintended consequences? Are the stakes a little too high?

But it's only 3am and daylight is a long way off. Those wolves are just starting to run. Other thoughts, other questions. From the shallow (Is there a God?... Does a dog have Buddha-nature?...), to the deep (Why didn't I see a Christmas card from so and so?... At what icy moment are those eggs I forgot to collect gonna crack?...) It's churning now. I rewind through recent podcasts. Lot's of traveling over Christmas means lots of podcasts. One dealt with human error: a 19 year old Air Force mechanic accidentally dropped his socket wrench next to a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile, nearly vaporizing Arkansas and surrounding states. Horrific and hilarious at the same time. Are the stakes a little too high?

I rewind through a recent game of Monopoly. Maizy won. How was that possible? Mason and I were the experts-- buy, buy, buy. Especially properties that have a high return on investment. Basically, do what rich people do in real life. But, darn it, while we duked it out, Maizy proceeded to put up three hotels on her one set of properties. As the game went on, every roll of the dice resulted in larger and larger sums of money changing hands. The stakes got high. A few bad rolls later, I was bankrupt, Mason was mortgaging everything, and Maizy was asking for help keeping track of her piles of money.

I rewind through recent years. The memories. I rewind as far as I can. Faces and places. There's a mountain to mine.  A lot of coal, a little gold, a few diamonds. I get lost in it. I chew on question after question. What if I did this and not that? Said this and not that?

4am, the wolves are howling now. Thoughts darken. Politics, religion, science, ahh, the end of time. Extinction, always a favorite. What's going to get us? Flood, fire, famine? Pandemic? Nuclear war? Climate change? Something freaky but inevitable like Yellowstone blowing up? We are overdue, you know? And more poignant, will it happen in my lifetime? Couldn't happen, you say? God is on our side? Yeah. Tell that to the trilobites. Not so soon, you say? Again, talk to the trilobites. A God blessed species if I ever saw one- fine and dandy for 300 million years and whoopsie, a little Permian Extinction. Bad roll. It happens. To them, we can't begin to hold a candle, and if you care to ponder, we're not exactly a nonvolatile species. 

But we're so much smarter than those trilobites?... bahahahah! In the same way plutonium is smarter than peat moss. 

The stakes are high, the game grinds on, Maizy sits there grinning, and here we go, let's roll a winner!

By 5am I think I've picked a winner. The answer is: None of the above. And to the second, more poignant question, the answer is: Yes. Here's our winner- AI. Sure, why not? Artificial intelligence. Smart, fast, dangerous, practically on your doorstep, and in its own geeky way, kinda cool. At least our extinction will certainly have that over the trilobites- The cool factor. 

Sam Harris is a favorite of mine. Horrific and hilarious at the same time. I think we could be friends.

Just yesterday I sent this to my brother. Is he now up at all hours, staring through the ceiling?

Probably not. I'm the one with the problems.

By 6am it's time to cage the wolves. By 6:30, I turn to think about the day. The light is on its way.

And how about the new year? The light is on its way. There's planning. There's projects. There's potential. My God, is there ever potential! 

 A new day, a new year! It's 7am, I've got my kids, my wife, my family, the business and this unbelievable luck. Unimaginable, undeniable luck that got me, that got us, that got everybody, to this particular moment.

It's not so bad. Two more days to savor 2017, and we live on to throw the dice! So quit the pondering. If you didn't get that Christmas card from so and so, I've got one here for you, just as significant and just as meaningless.

A sincere, no, a genuine Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Christmas Therapy

-Posted by Isaac

That's not Lake Erie.

Dude.

White sands, green waters and a gentle sea breeze.

All to ourselves.

This week we found our castles in the sky.

Sort of.

800 miles south, through the land of cotton,

to the warm, sun-kissed Gulf shores of Grayton Beach State Park.

It was Jayne's idea.

She planned everything, booked our stay, and did all of the packing. Was she tired of my incessant holiday complaining? Most likely.

A refreshing five day break from the Joy Joy Joy. 

Alas, you can never totally sever yourself from Christmas. 

Or your Christmas guilt.

(We'll take four!)

Down there, they had truckloads of it. Tis the season.

All in all, it was a much needed therapeutic trip. For the entire family, but especially for me. A break from the worrying over bees and the winter bitching. What did this Scrooge do to deserve such a thoughtful wife? Not enough, I can tell you. I think I just got lucky. Thankfully we share the same tastes- isolation and simplicity.

Only one afternoon was spent doing the tourist thing. It was in nearby Destin- big plastic gorillas, mini golf, go-carts, bumper boats, arcades, slurpees, fights and tears, and overpriced greasy food. The things we do for our children...

For the most part the entire trip consisted of simple joys- sand, water, waves and peanut butter sandwiches. Endless soft trails through the pines, mile after gorgeous mile of empty beach.

Where was everybody? Back in Destin, maybe? Singing carols? Hanging greens? Toasting the holidays?

Who knows? Who cares. All I know is, we had the place to ourselves. It was relaxing. Our little cabin was a three minute walk to the beach, and there wasn't a single moment I felt obligated to spread my Christmas cheer. There was simply no one around.

No one and no worries- even if you happened to forget your swimsuit back at the cabin.

No worries.