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.