-Posted by Isaac

So it's Saturday morning, Jayne left for market an hour ago, and I'm here waiting on nuc customers to show up. Maizy has "Kid's Bop" on the kitchen Pandora, so I hide here in the office with my Bob Dylan. First song to pop up, an oldie but a goodie. One that our little band loved to cover way back in that other life that I can hardly remember. 

'Clouds so swift, the rain won't lift...'

Yes, that about sums it up. 

What a horrendous week. Hilarious almost. Ironically, my last post was titled 'A Beautiful Thing.' The day I posted that, the rains had moved in, and eight days later they're still here.

Hilarious on account of what also happened: our spring bloom. Every year in this little nest of central Ohio heaven, we have about 10 days of intense spring bloom. The black locust and bush honeysuckle fire off at the same time. Like peaches and cream if you're a honey bee.

And if you're a beekeeper you just sit back and smile. You pat yourself on the back for all the hard work of prepping strong colonies. And you think about all the honey extracting to come. 

Not this year. We're nearing the end of our 10 days and I don't think the bees have even made it out. Not only rain. Cold! Last night the temp bottomed out at 35 degrees. And wind! The one day it wasn't raining and actually warm enough to forage, the winds were clipping along at about 30 mph. It sucks. I mean it sucks.

Not that I'm one to complain. (hehe)

The farmers have had it worse.

It's planting season, nothing's getting planted.  What did get planted is getting drowned. If not drowned, it's getting frozen.

It sucks.

Not that I'm one to complain.

Oh good... here comes another Dylan... 'Come in she said, I'll give ya shelter from the storm.' 

Today my shelter is music. A little folk music always brightens the gloom. It's true! Try it! 

I'll leave you on a happier note.

I fell into a new bee location this week. A random guy on a Worthington market food tour last summer said, "Come on out, see what we've got." 

So this week I did. And it's awesome! (Picture above.) Almost 300 acres of non-row cropped forage. It looks like somewhere in the Dakotas. And it's only a 25 minute drive. We'll have 20 hives out there next week. What a stroke of good luck.

Well I'd better get out there. It's hard work selling these nucs! (Kidding. This sure beats working the market...)  

Customers will be here soon. And so will the warm weather.

Hopefully.

Yesterday my dad mentioned that it hit 90 degrees in Montana this week. That stings. In fact, I thought he may have been stretching the truth a little just to rub it in. So I looked it up.

He was... it was only 86.

'Climb that hill, no matter how steep, when we get up to it.'