Rage against the masheen

-Posted by Isaac

2020 has really tested my bandwidth.

I like blogging about real-world stuff.

Bees and honey and rocks and trees and sunshine and rain and silence and darkness and the moon and moon songs and road trips and bike rides.

That’s what I tried last week. It was nice. No criticisms.

And sometimes it’s fun to get a little dicy. It’s been easy in 2020. There’s an ocean in a bathtub when I go with love and hate and life and death and drugs and money and society and God and religion and capitalism and socialism and patriotism and social media and politics.

For that stuff, the opinions come flying. Mostly ribbing. But I can take it. At the very least, I can usually find a song to fit. (Oh, that Gregory Alan Isakov.)

But this week (thank you 2020), we step it up.

Jayne tells me that the Instagram crowd has been all about the racial protests. In fact, lately, if you post about your business or kids or the like, there’s a feeling of being purposely obtuse and shallow. Or silent on the issue.

And we wouldn’t want that. Not for this bee blog. We’re going to get into it. I mean, we’ve already explored the big disgusting slurry of society and money and politics and religion and God.

Sure, racial injustice—water’s great, come on in!

It got heated this week, didn’t it? For a minute there, I thought the pandemic was over. Social media erupted. A week ago it was the mask-wearers vs. non-maskers. Now it’s Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter. And don’t forget the Blue Lives. They matter too.

It’s nuts. We’re angry, we’re pissed, we’re divided, we’re spouting off, we’re running our mouths. (I’m sorry, I mean our memes.) We’re tear gassing, shooting, beating, arresting, protesting, fighting, throwing bricks, breaking stuff, looting stuff…

Is there any solution to any of this?

Of course! The obvious. Old Faithful.

Problem is, marijuana is only temporary. We have to think about the future.

And for that we need someone who’s seen the future. Whenever I feel trepidatious about what’s to come, I think, WWJD— What Would Joe Do? I look to the oracle:

I have studied, I have scrutinized, and I have learned. Based on today’s trajectory, if you consult the oracle, I mean really looking deep, it gives away so many aspects of what’s coming.

For instance, our criminal justice system:

Yep, still crappy. Still socially stratified. Still wealth-biased.

And our education system? Our prison system?

Yep, still overcrowded. Still sucky.

How about our policing? Our neighborhoods?

Yep, still violent.

But you know what I didn’t see? —Racial fighting. Everyone was getting along. Black, brown, white, Asian… Creole? Everyone was cool. Just living their lives, being extremely stupid, together. Like brothers.

And you know what this means? At some point, at some monumental moment between now and that distant rosy future, something happened. We pivoted away from all this fighting.

Is this it? Is this the moment? Maybe so! And if it is, if this really is when history changes by golly, I want to be on the right side of history. I’m throwing my Honeyrun support toward the protesters.

In fact, I can even look past a little smashing and looting. Come on down protesters! Take some honey! Break a window while you’re at it. I’ve got pallets of bricks.

If it helps in any way to nullify 400 years of slavery, oppression, Jim Crow laws, redlining districts, injustice, civil rights strife, discrimination, segregation, castigation and police brutality… then I’m all for it. Smash the place!

White Guilt manifest! Just be sure you’ve got the right address. I don’t have to tell you, but these country roads are lined with guns and alcohol. With a few pockets of abject poverty thrown in for good measure. In some ways, come to think of it, it’s a little like the Hood.

You know, it’s a shame we can’t combine our forces. I mean, come together to go a’smashing at our common enemy— The System. That looting cesspool of bootlicking-enabler-shills, gutless bunker-hiding cowards, those soulless tax-skirting corporate and government thugs who use lawyers and lobbyists, accountants and judges to do their smashing. They don’t need bricks. And they don’t take TVs. They take billion$ and billion$.

Let’s go protesters! God is with you! Now is the time! ¡Viva Dios!

Rage!

Take us to that bright I-Have-A-Dream future for which we so desperately long.

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,