Wakey wakey

-Posted by Isaac

Sometimes in waking,

between thoughts and dreams, during those early coagulating seconds

where the vast and timeless fades into the scheduled and routine,

where the still pixelating cosmos bridges into the coming day’s struggles,

we find a moment of hilarious sentience.

The hilarity of which,

reflected by our instinctual desires

to gather, to grow,

to understand the world around us,

coupled to the incomprehensible odds of simply being born into an existence,

where color and light flash between eye blinks,

and unreachable infinite horizons sit in plain view,

while every single breath proves worthwhile, if for no other reason than to just take another…

the hilarity of which…

is intoxicating.

Let us, if only for a few seconds, tune out the news of the day,

and wake up to the news of the world.

High Cotton

-Posted by Isaac (Photo credit Courtney Hergesheimer on the nice ones: 3rd, 6th, and 11th photos)

While we’re on the filmmaking kick…

Sister Becky made the YouTube circuit— Tilley Farmstead

Released to the world just a day after my movie debuted, she sort of stole my thunder. And I’m still pissed. I’ve always referred to Becky and Justin as the wealthy produce farmers down the road. And if you watch the clip, they make that little fact quite clear.

C’on Justin, show us those gold teeth!

You can see it. The money simply oozing from their pores.

We’re more than mile-apart neighbors now. They’ve moved in! Just across the fence from the honey house they’ve carved out two acres from our hayfield. Now we have thousands of garlic plants, thousands of tomatoes.

Some evenings I lean on the fence and think about the farming life. I look out over all that garlic while the sun sinks low and orange, I think… no thanks.

That’s a lot of work.

I’m sticking with the bees. Especially during a pandemic.

Plus, we’ve got goats.

They’ll carry us through the hard times.

Also, the young’uns are coming on. Learnin’ how to shoot. How to survive in the country.

If times get lean, all I have to do is teach them how to climb a fence with a shovel.

No delivery required.

But for now, just this week in fact, the fat times are upon us.

It’s high cotton out there.

The honeysuckle has bloomed! The sun is out, the heat is on, the bees are strong, the supers are ready. As Bill Huhman, our county bee inspector said today, “It’s game on!”

We’ll just sit back and wait.

I was supering a yard at the Brown’s place last week and Mr. Brown was watching from a distance. I was yammering as I walked to and from the truck, grabbing supers. You just wait, Mr. Brown, these bees will be shooting around everywhere next week. All that honeysuckle along the creek, when it blooms, man, it’s high cotton if you’re a honey bee.

He laughed really hard for a second. Then paused, and looked quizzically, “High Cotton?”

Then I laughed.

You know, like that Alabama song— you don’t have to reach down so far. For once, you don’t have to work so hard to make a living. It’s the good ol days coming back.

It’s high cotton.

Let the good times roll.

For the next two weeks we’ll live it up. Easy honey. My bees, my poor needy girls won’t have to peddle Chiclets or steal chickens to put food on the table.

And after that? Well, we’ll figure it out. We always do. County folks can survive. Oh, there I go with the hillbilly twang again.

I suppose if it comes to it, if things really start to look dire, you can always shake down a rich kid.

All Apologies

-Posted by Isaac

I’ve got something for you:

Here it is, in case it didn’t embed for those on the mailing list: Bee slideshow

Oh, you didn’t know I was a filmmaker? (In addition to being your weekly socioeconomic political commentator?)

I didn’t either. Until Thursday. I was asked to give a stay-at-home presentation for this month’s bee meeting. The topic— a synopsis of the CA almond pollination and the bees returning home.

So this is the result. Wouldn’t have been possible without Jayne and Mason. I’m a stubborn mule when it comes to learning something new with tech. It’s about 11 minutes, and I’ve watched the thing four or five times now. Very proud at first, but with each new viewing, I’m finding little things that should be adjusted or improved. For one, it sounds like I’m a bit tipsy. (Not the case.) (Prolly woulda helped.) And there’s a lot that could be edited, or made funnier. Plenty of funny and interesting things about CA, Turlock, Denise the broker, Michael the trucker, Alberto the trucker, Lafe, etc… But oh well, something to think about for my next blockbuster.

So far, this one’s gotten rave reviews.

Look at that! 100% positive feedback!

Have you ever seen such a thing? On YouTube?

Not even Beethoven’s 5th could match such a flawless record…

So maybe I’m just fooling myself with these self deprecating criticisms of Bee slideshow. See what you think.

It appears, not even the greats can measure up.

Mama tried

-Posted by Isaac

What was it they said in Jurassic Park?

Life finds a way…

I realize maybe some of you have been fretting this week— those who took the time to digest last week’s post. Those of you who hate freedom and unbridled capitalism. Or those who simply don’t think my plan will work. Well let me tell you something— life finds a way.

And while life is finding a way, let us not dawdle.

Let us enrich ourselves.

Let us capitalize.

You worry warts, you naysayers, you need to remember that awesome bear song. (even more awesome with marijuana) You know, the line about fretting and frowning on missed opportunity… and then what happens?:

Well I caught that branch, I caught that branch…

On the way back down, on the way back down.

Capitalism. It’s the American way.

We’ll figure it out. We always do, right?

Right??

Aside from the anticapitalist and annoying pandemic situation, this week brought another disturbance in the Force:

Murder hornets! Nooo!!

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. (And articles. And text messages.) Silly me, here I was distressing over varroa mites this whole time.

Hopefully the bees and the beekeepers and the concerned citizens can be proactive with this thing.

That is, before this new plague, this death-on-wings overtakes the country.

But look at it this way, we’re going to have some incredible post apocalyptic stories to tell our grandchildren— between Pandemic 2020, Tiger King, and Murder Hornets. (We’ve got, at the very least, some great new school mascots.) What’s next? Trump University? Oh wait…

If we could only get to that far off day. It sure seems like a long way, that bright worry-free, mask-free day when all is right with the world. When the kids are back in school and Mom isn’t a full time teacher/ tutor/ counselor/ entertainer/ doctor/ chef/ server/ maid/ trainer/ planner/ cleaner.

That’s right! Happy Mother’s Day!

It’s time to honor our moms.

I had thought about honoring our queen mothers. I was going to take a bunch of pictures this week—queens in their natural glory— and do some kind of cheesy analogy to mothers and queen bees. But that fell apart with the cold wet weather. We made very few splits this week. The only queens I dealt with were in cages (above). (They did however get the royal mother’s treatment— a warm honey bath.)

Anyway, I’ve done that before, the queen pic thing: Queen Cheesiness completed!

So instead, with Mama at market this morning, I thought of a different way to honor Mother.

The kids picked out one or two adjectives describing Mama. They were to write a story or memory about Mom and her adjective.

…Or just do something creative.

We sure have a lot of memories with brave Mom.

But sometimes it’s hard to put into stories.

We owe her everything. She’s holding us together.

And if we fall to pieces during this pandemic, if we still turn out rotten, I have only myself to blame.

Because,

Heroes of capitalism

-Posted by Isaac

I happened to see this in TIME magazine the other day, and it was really demoralizing.

No, not the blurb about New Zealand already overcoming their pandemic. No, not our own president’s “sarcasm” about disinfectants. And no, not even the part about insect decline. I already knew about that, it’s just that I didn’t know it was that far along. I had a billion dollar idea this week, and the demoralizing part is that my idea may never come to fruition, simply for the fact that it seems to be happening anyway… without my involvement.

I’m sorry, I have jumped way ahead and no doubt confused you already. So let me back up.

We’ll start with apple pollination.

This is my Bat Signal Tree. All year long, most mornings, sometime between 5 and 7am I run by this apple tree. In April I pay attention. As soon as I see the first buds, I can just about set my watch to it— the apple orchards will be calling within the next three days. It’s my Bat Signal.

And sure enough, the calls came.

The Lynd Fruit Farm and Sunny Hill Orchards. Needing the bees ASAP.

Right now!

What’s funny, is that the Bat Signal was a little off this year. By about a week. It was several more days from the time I anticipated moving bees to the time I actually did. Hmmm…

Plus, the redbuds were still in bloom.

That’s never happened. (At least not in my memory.) Usually we’re way beyond the redbuds when the apples come in.

Here’s my non-botanist, unscientific, beekeeper ordering of the spring bloom in central Ohio:

Maples / Crocus / Deadnettle / Willows / Redbuds / Dandelions / Peach / Pears / Apples / Cherries / Dogwoods / Ash / Autumn Olive / Honeysuckle / Black Locust / Tulip poplar / Honey locust / Oaks

I’m sure I’ll take some flack when the experts read this and correct me, but even the experts have to admit… this has been a weird year.

Autumn Olive and redbuds blooming at the same time? What gives?

Well, what gives is that it’s been so cold. We had two weeks in April where the day’s high temp didn’t even reach the normal average for that specific date. Cold!

The bees, and all other insects couldn’t make it out to do their jobs. When a flower doesn’t get pollinated, it stays around awhile. And waits. That’s why the redbuds are still around. You’ve probably noticed this.

I was yammering about all this with Laura Urban on Wednesday. She was taking a big load of nucs off my hands.

That’s when the idea hit me. My billion dollar idea.

But I kept it simmering for a few more days. On Friday I loaded a fellow Scioto Valley Beekeepers club member with his own batch of nucs. Much to my chagrin, David is a blog reader. So instead of blooms and bees, David with a wry smile decided to launch into other areas of conversation: pandemic, societal ills, socialism, capitalism…

I had to reassure him, “No man, as much as people want to peg me as some kind of socialist, unamerican, leftist wack job… I’m not, believe me.”

We were out in the nuc yard.

Look, small business. Right here. My own little capitalist kingdom. Trust me, I’m a flag waving fat cat through and through. And it’s working out pretty well. “I just use that blog to raise your capitalist ire. It’s fun to point out all the flaws and hypocrisies.”

And boy, there sure seems to be a lot of them.

Just look around.

Or if you can afford it… boat around.

Flaws…

#winning

…and hypocrisies.

Enough material for months and months of blog posts.

Especially during the pandemic months.

No David, I’m nowhere close to being a socialist. Capitalism is fine and dandy. I was born 1. white 2. healthy 3. male 4. middle class 5. two parent family 6. landed family 7. in a functioning community 8. with a protestant work ethic

It would be really hard to screw that up.

So to prove to you guys once again, my red blooded capitalist bent, here’s my billion dollar idea: We douse the world in chemicals.

Specifically, insecticides.

But we’d have to do it right. I mean soak the place. None of this half-assed, as-needed stuff the farmers spray on soybeans. No willy-nilly insect-specific seed treatment that the Bayer Corp. uses for corn. That’s a good start. But what we need is a 100% kill. We need to carpet bomb the forests. We need to drench the fields. Kind of like flood irrigation… but using Dursban instead of water. It would become sort of a chemical Manhattan Project.

And what does this gain? Well let me tell you— Just a few bullet points:

• We put people back to work. Big Chem could start hiring… and never really quit. Also, hospitals and Big Pharma would benefit indirectly.

• Without insects, we beautify the place. No more pollination means… brilliant redbuds in June! Spectacular dogwoods in July!

• We solve our immigration woes. Nobody wants to come to a place reeking of chemicals.

• We keep the pro-lifers and pro-choicers happy. There simply wouldn’t be pregnancies.

• Most importantly, no more bat related pandemics. We have eliminated their food source!

There it is. My billion dollar idea. I was thinking I could run all this by President Trump. Given my previous experience with people and science and insects, I’d quickly be appointed Chemical Czar— in charge of basic operations and logistics. It could potentially become a trillion dollar project, of which I’d skim a little off the top.

Just a little.

Saving the country while lining my pockets. No doubt I would end up snagging my very own Presidential Freedom Award.

Just like other heroes of capitalism.

So this is why I was so disappointed to see that blurb in TIME. It looks like we’re well on our way… and I haven’t even done anything. But maybe there’s still time, I don’t know? Still time to capitalize.

Unfortunately it’s going to be an uphill battle. Starting at home. See, I’m married to this socialist who thinks we ought to share the wealth once in a while.

I’ll explain the error of her ways after dinner.