Finding your happiness

-Posted by Isaac

What makes you happy?

Where’s my food, chump?

The subject came up last Sunday at my mother’s family dinner. At what level of security or comfort or wealth or status could you look at your life and call yourself truly happy? It’s something to ponder isn’t it?

It’s nice that we big-brained social animals get to ponder. And there’s a lot of ponder time in the winter.

For the goats, happiness seems to equate to food. Summer or winter, it doesn’t matter, they act exactly the same as long as I follow the routine- food in the morning. I’m a slave to them. I bring the food. Sometimes the slave will talk a while, sometimes not. Sometime’s he’ll scratch ears and necks, sometimes not. The goats act the same, as long as there’s food. But if I forget, if they make it past noon and haven’t seen their slave, They let me know.

The chickens seem the same. FOOD=HAPPINESS

But what about the bees?

Where does happiness compute on the social insect scale? From my comfy truck window, it appears that the bees have it awfully rough in the winter. But who knows? Maybe they think they’ve got it good. A bee-length eternity of shelter, food, warmth, companionship… what more do you need? Is it as simple as SURVIVAL=HAPPINESS=NIRVANA?

Maybe it’s humans who have it rough. We have this hierarchy of needs.

Where are you on the Maslow scale?

What does it take to make you happy? Are you somewhere above that base of physiological needs? Or maybe the base is just well and good. I feel this way sometimes. Especially in the winter. Ok, let’s see… breathing, check… excretion, check… Cool. I’m good for today.

But most days, even in the winter, we need a little more don’t we? Family, friends, health, entertainment…

Creativity, spontaneity…

Or maybe your winter happiness requires that you invent a new reality. Travel. To hell with winter in Ohio! It’s brutal up here! Let’s go find the softer side of nature.

Unless you’re a migratory beekeeper, the poor bees don’t have the travel option. They’re forced to stay put and enjoy their nirvana in the base of Maslow’s pyramid.

We, on the other hand, can have gator nuggets in January.

And we can instantly tell our friends how good they taste… our shivering friends a thousand miles away. Talk about achievement! Talk about respect by others!

Is this happiness?

We can sit and admire the problem solving abilities of the monkeys on Monkey Island.

Talk about respect of others!

At the same time, we can easily boost our self-esteem and confidence. (I’m pretty sure by now, we would’ve figured out how to get off that island…)

Is this happiness?

You know, the more that I think about it, maybe my assumptions are completely off base. I’m assuming that, as a human, the higher you climb through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the happier you are. This may be way off. Maybe, quite possibly, needs and happiness have little to do with each other. Maybe that peak of self-actualization is reserved only for the enlightened.

If this is the case, I’m missing the boat. The enlightenment ship has set sail and I’m stuck in the shop.

I look around… still 100 nuc boxes to finish, 50 drip boards to paint, 50 comb boxes to prep, 1000 frames to build… goat pens to fix, horse pastures to fence, chicken waterer to invent, extractor to repair, barn to build, trees to cut, firewood to stack… there’s just no time for Facebook!

I’ll never reach morality… lack of prejudice… acceptance of facts…

Too bad.

But you know, I still feel pretty happy. Even in the Ohio winter. Maybe for this human, the key is just keeping busy. BUSYNESS=HAPPINESS.

And thankfully, hobby farming and keeping bees provides someone of my low enlightenment stature with an endless list of mundane tasks. Maybe I’ll never reach Maslow’s peak, but on the other had, I’ll never deplete the happiness tank.

This is Winter

-Posted by Isaac

Those Florida pictures will have to wait.

Old Man Winter decided to visit central Ohio this week and we met him with open arms.

There was plenty of bee work to attend to, but with the snow, fun took first priority.

See ya, Bridger! Hey, take a look at those bees while you’re back there.

But who am I kidding? Intentional or not, fun takes first priority all the time. Such is beekeeping. I’m in love with my job and I’m in love with my millions of coworkers. Even in the winter.

Especially in the winter.

It’s time to feed.

This week I visited all the girls. The snow made it more difficult, but I think they needed checked. The really nasty weather is still to come.

Most looked like this:

Just the very top of what I hope is a big nest. The clusters are working upwards, and although there is obviously still plenty of honey, it won’t hurt to put on a patty or two just for insurance.

It was quick and easy. Seconds per hive.

…Except for a couple yards where I didn’t get around to placing the spacer in December. Here, the snow presented more of an obstacle.

Winter feeding. A lonely, quiet, contemplative job. Exactly the kind I like. Very little radio or podcasting or Facebooking went on this week. The snowy silence provided ample satisfaction.

And speaking of contemplative, I stumbled across this David Foster Wallace speech. It was delivered at the Kenyon College commencement in 2005. This is only the seven minute highlight reel-

Complete with visuals and background music. I thought it was more fitting for this blog, but if you want the 22 minute full version, it is well worth the time. Maybe the best 22 minutes you’ll spend all week.

Winter is a good time to ponder stuff like this.

Here is the winter beekeeper- a window selfie- lord of his tiny skull-sized kingdom, alone at the center of all creation:

The bee suit becomes insulated coveralls, the thin gloves have become thick, the work boots are now waterproof snow boots.

But the veil remains. Why? Because every now and then, I’ll pop a lid and find a hive that looks like this:

Wow! You can see that these girls are a bit confused as to what season we’re in. ‘38 degrees! It must be June!’ They were fed a month ago, and they’ll need continued calories as we go through winter. They already had two full frames of brood, and why they think it’s spring, I don’t know.

Are they stupid? Or just overly ambitious? It’s a mystery to me… maybe one in fifty look like this. Which gives me ten or twelve reasons to make it around in the snow.

Sometimes it’s not the most enjoyable, frozen fingers and toes, lugging feed, getting stuck… but it has some rewards. Almost aways, I finish up listening to the low hum of bees. In every yard there are one or two noise makers.

It’s so silent out there. All it takes is a single hive to wake from its winter slumber, filling the air with a low soothing vibration. Are they singing, ‘Hello again! Happy day! Thanks for the food!’ Or have I pissed them off? ‘For God’s sake, leave us alone!’

I’ll never know. But whatever they’re saying, it makes me happy.

This is winter. And they’re saying something.

End of the line

-Posted by Isaac

Wow, has it been two weeks? Sorry about the delay. I guess Jayne and I have been having our own little government shutdown.

Plus we’ve been busy building walls.

Nothing worked. Eventually, relentlessly, the foreign wave overran our borders and swept us into oblivion.

Yes, we’ve been vacationing. Florida. But not for two weeks. No way! Impossible. We had the kids.

I’m hoping Jayne will fill you in on the highlights. Maybe next week? I’ve got a lot of great pictures, but we’re still somewhat in blog shutdown mode. We’ve had sort of a standoff. And thinking back, it resulted from a short conversation during one of our driving days. A conversation filled with half truths and small lies. The subject of doing this weekly blog came up and our talk went something like this:

ME- Honey, I’m tired of it.

HER- (long pause) Tired of what? The blog?

ME- Yeah. I mean, I’m not looking forward to it. Even with all the vacation pictures. It’s become work. It takes too much time and way too much mental energy.

HER- (long pause) Really?

ME- Yes, really. If it’s so easy, why don’t you try one once in a while? I mean, I try to be witty, I try to drum up interest, even be funny… sometimes I pour my heart out. And what becomes of all that? Nothing. I get ignored. No, worse than nothing… I get critiqued. Somebody doesn’t like my politics… my ideology is a problem… I’m doing something wrong with the bees… it starts to weigh on me, you know? The blog has become work.

HER- (long pause) Well, if you want me to do one, I will.

ME- Ok. Have at it.

You can tell I was shamelessly fishing for a compliment. Oh Honey, they’re so good! They really are! Please keep doing them… The problem was that she knew this. She could tell. And that’s why my compliment never came.

Or maybe not? Maybe she really is annoyed by them? I do know she hates it when I get political. Which is funny, because for the most part, our politics align. (Thank God.) She’s warned me more times than I can count. Don’t go there. You only piss people off! But I can’t help it. Politics are hilarious these days. And easy. Low hanging fruit, you know? Look at our president… I just can’t help it.

Regardless of the reasons, the shower of compliments didn’t come, and here we are. Two weeks later. Me refusing to blog, waiting for Jayne to do a vacation recap.

I guess I lost that battle, didn’t I? Oh well.

In retrospect, this all seems very childish and insecure.

But hey, at least I’m not getting political.

I’ve got a song for you. Something to really kick the year off right.

Sometimes I like to listen to these guys first thing in the morning. My good friends, Tom, Roy, Bob, Jeff, George, and Jim. They always set the day off right. My best friends, some days. Just listen to those harmonies! Take in those lyrics! Soak it up! You’ll see what I mean.

Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze…

Well it’s all right…

As long as you’ve still got bees!

Building good relations

-Posted by Isaac

The day after Christmas we woke up to a cold fog and frozen magic. Had Queen Elsa visited the bee farm?

For the kids, the long beautiful crystals were intoxicating, adding fuel to the excitement and debauchery of the day before. For me, it wasn’t quite as enchanting. I woke up with a stomach virus.

Too much eggnog? I don’t know. But this week of all weeks, it turned out to be not such a bad thing. Impeccable timing on that bug. Basically it got me out of a day of the Christmas run around— I missed a party and a few meals. I slept by the stove. I read a book. I listened to about eight hours of Dan Carlin’s WWI Hardcore History. It was the best day-after-Christmas ever!

By the 27th, I thought I was ready jump back in. I determined I would put on a happy face, step lightly, put my best foot forward, and once again give it my best shot. It was an all important week— a week of building good relations.

And it went as expected: lots of family commotion. A perpetual and relentless kid drama, just a touch of adult drama. A lot of sugar, a little beer. I only stuck my foot in my mouth about five times, and had only one argument. Not bad. So far.

Yesterday I got into it with my brother. (The one argument.) (So far.) It was over the formation of stalactites.

Of all the stupid things to fight about.

We took a family trip to the Ohio Caverns. For about half the tour Justin and I had a heated and somewhat bitter debate over the differential rate of calcite growth and whether there was really any hard science to back up the age estimates of the cave formations. We thoroughly embarrassed our fellow cave explorers, a group of about thirty. We even embarrassed our tour guide, who, as it turned out, was just a hired kid repeating a dumb script.

How do I know it was embarrassing? Jayne told me later. And I guess I sort of knew it at the time too. So much for good relations.

And she also told me something I’ve heard several times over several Christmases: “You need to back down and just let it go.”

She’s right. I know she’s right. I just can’t seem to quit falling into it…so many potential arguments with so many family members… and so little time. There’s really only one good week a year with which to argue. This is it.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not enjoy it. I’m not a fighter. There’s just something about Christmas week. It creates an explosive atmosphere— all the people, the screaming kids, the lack of routine… tensions are already high. It’s like the land mine is set with a hair trigger, ready to blow up on the first idiot to put his foot where he knows he shouldn’t. And here I come stumbling in… with my science, and my politics, and my opinions, and my big feet…

Tomorrow is the last obstacle of the week— the big Barnes extended family Christmas. And you can bet I’m going to watch my step. I need to take some WWI advice from Dan Carlin. Just bunker down and endure. It’s trench warfare, these Christmas parties. And tomorrow I’m not getting my head shot off. Nor my foot blown off. I’ll stay in my trench. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Smile nice. Just endure. I’ll take no shots, I’ll let old wounds heal.

But the week hasn’t all been dodging bullets and dressing wounds. Sure, Christmas break has some downsides, but one great thing I’m discovering is that my kids are old enough to work. Really work. Not legally, but who’s checking? They’re out of school and we have plenty of projects. They still think this stuff is fun.

Between the Christmas parties and get-togethers, between building good relations, we did find time for some waxing. Rolling a light layer of beeswax on foundation gives the bees a head start on building comb.

And when the weather turned too nice to ignore, we got out in the sun.

This winter we’re putting a wood fence around the barnyard. Not that there’s anything wrong with the flimsy goat fence I pieced together last spring. They only get out once or twice a week.

First step: dig the post holes.

Looking at these pictures, I’m reminded that there are more pressing things I should be attending to. Like putting up metal siding on the barn. The goats have had an all-you-can-eat buffet for weeks.

Oh well. Merry Christmas, goats. I guess the siding can wait.

I love the rhythm of digging post holes. On a warm day in the winter, I can’t imagine anything better. And I try to convey this joy to the kids. Watching 12,000 years of soil come up, feeling the loamy wet earth, seeing the worms, squishing the clay. It’s all wonderful, and you get to do it over and over again. All day, if you’re lucky.

Maybe even all winter? You can see we made some progress this week. Even with all the commotion and calamity of Christmas.

And it was so much fun. When the worms and mud lost their excitement, when my lessons about soil growth lost their allure, the kids still found plenty to do. For instance, there was spud bar gravel drawing and backward forklift sitting…

…and about a thousand other things.

So all in all, it’s been a good week. A good finish to 2018.

The kids are still asleep right now and Jayne just left for the Worthington Market- the last market of 2018. I’ve got one quiet hour to galvanize my thoughts and prepare for a day of good relations. Right? Focus! Just a couple more days to say the right things and do the right things. And then we can send the year off in good standing. Let’s hope.

Maybe it’s not as hard for you, this off balance week between Christmas and New Years. Maybe you always say the right thing, dodging each and every bullet. Congrats. I envy you.

Or maybe you’ve simply figured out something that I still can’t seem to grasp: listen to your wife.

Santa's Workshop

-Posted by Isaac

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Forgive me.

I would never really insult you, our wonderful blog readers, seekers of truth and light. At least not at Christmas. I saw this card at Wholly Craft yesterday and had to laugh. But just in case you are a filthy animal, they sell many many bars of gorgeous Honeyrun Farm soap. Handcrafted for all your hygiene needs.

Wholly Craft was one of many stops yesterday on my weekly Columbus deliveries. And to my utter delight, my dad said he wanted to come along.

It was a good day for company. We hit twelve stops, big and small, and had a record day on the gallons. Over thirty went out to the various restaurants, breweries, and smoothie shops. So thanks for not only buying local, thanks also for encouraging the places you patronize to use local honey. More and more businesses are starting to get on the bus. The localism wave, I mean. It really does make a difference in your own community. Thank you! But you already knew that, didn’t you? I’m just preaching to the choir on this blog.

It was fun to see Dad look over the different businesses and think about the economics of it all. Every time we’d get back in the van, he had a barrage of questions. The few of you who may be lucky enough to know my father can testify that he’s pretty good with numbers. And you also know that he loves to probe into your personal finances. Not in a nosey way. More of a curious and jokey way.

But two can play at that. Knowing Dad, and anticipating the questions that were sure to come, I couldn’t help but inflate my figures just a little. I could see the pride slowly start to radiate from him as the day wore on. Sitting next to his millionaire son, helping with deliveries. What a thrill! By the time I’d treated him to a Whole Foods ‘business’ lunch, I could see the ‘atta-boy’ just beaming in his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Dad. I got this…”

It was a proud and quiet ride home. (In the beat up old van with duct tape holding the front bumper together.)

What else can we talk about? How about Santa’s workshop.

Starting about mid November, this ugly little shop serves a big and beautiful purpose.

Every morning, about daylight, I get the wood stove fired up. At 8am the elves arrive and start in on their various tasks.

All in the hopes of bringing springtime joy to the good little boys and girls of Honeyrun Farm. (Mainly girls)

Above on the right, you can see the wall of dead-out boxes that we’ve scraped and prepped. These will be spread far and wide, filled with life by the end of April. It’s looking like we’ll have just over one hundred hive bodies to fill. This is, if the winter isn’t too rough on us.

Below is the mountain of nucs we have yet to assemble.

Thankfully Christmas isn’t our deadline. April is still a long way off.

Nonetheless, with the nice weather this week, Santa’s workshop stayed busy into the night. Long hours were spent dipping lids (paraffin for waterproofing and warp prevention). And when the dipping started to get tedious, you could look into building frames and assembling boxes.

500 nuc boxes mean 2500 frames. The work can get a bit repetitious in the winter.

But you know, sometimes repetition is exactly what you need. You’re getting something done, you don’t have to think hard, you just let your mind wander. It’s a relaxing daily respite in this warm little workshop. Almost a vacation. Away from the Christmas stress, away from the tension and strain and annoyances I have so thoroughly ranted about in years past.

I know, it all changes next week. No longer will I be able to hide in my workshop building toys for good little girls.

Reality deals a heavy blow.

Yes, it’s about to get real.

And yes, Eden, there is a Santa Claus…