Fits and starts

-Posted by Isaac

Are you tired of the social commentary? Me, in my perfect white world, me with my idiotic solutions to social problems. I’m tired of it. And I think Jayne is too. Or maybe a little embarrassed? Quite possibly.

Whatever it was, there were rumblings of her doing the blog this week and letting me off the hook. I guess she had a cool video of Bridger helping with the honey extraction.

And, go figure, it didn’t happen.

I can’t even pester her about it. This morning she ran off to the mountains of Virginia with her girlfriends. I’m stuck with all this (and the kids) for three days.

And you’re stuck with me.

The good news is, I’ll spare you the social commentary. I’m asserting my ultimate white privilege— ignoring the world’s problems.

So we rely on the old fallback. I’ll inundate you with what’s in my phone, and try to scaffold a story together.

What I thought would be the big story— We started pulling and extracting honey this week. It’s been beautiful. It’s been awesome. There’s sure nothing like that first bright floral taste of brilliant white, spring honey.

But the real story, according to what’s in my phone, is everything else that’s happened in lieu of the honey extraction.

Like that cat. Our prodigy. Our phenom. We have four or five half-wild cats running around, and this one has been putting on a show. Every evening he or she will walk the fence all the way around. It’s probably over a quarter mile of balancing. We watch amazed. No wonder I can’t get any bee work done. I’m not gonna miss the cat show.

And then there was the hay.

Make hay when the sun shines, they say. And that’s what we did. It put a halt to the bees for a few days.

Was it worth it? Well, if you’re talking money-wise, not by a long shot.

But at least our little ladies are happy.

And with the hay cut, it made for a few starry nights down by the creek. We called this “Hay Camp.”

Even got around to planting some sunflowers.

Hopefully they’ll outgrow the next cutting.

Did you know Pickaway County has a coronavirus forcefield? Our county fair is still on!

So Cliff needs walked every day. That’s been a distraction.

Another distraction— I’m still selling nucs.

A few more, hopefully the last few, took off this week for parts unknown.

But my other nucs, my babies, are all grown up. They’re heading for the out yards.

Aren’t they beautiful?

I’ve been moving bees on these gorgeous early June mornings. Every morning I think, my God, am I not the luckiest bastard alive?

During the day, I would get around to checking and feeding those babies.

Dodging storms on a few afternoons.

The heat brought the rain. And it also brought multiple trips to Frosties.

Our one-stop bait shop / ice cream retreat. I see Maizy was the only one taking Covid 19 seriously.

Soon came the catalpa bloom.

Right on time—first week of June. Which makes the nonexistent black locust bloom even more mysterious.

Somewhere in there I had to take a quick trip to Amish country.

Where the strapping young lads loaded me with next year’s boxes. The Amish don’t furlough employees (sons and daughters) on account of some little pandemic.

Because of the pandemic, our trip to the Hocking Hills was a bit different.

The parks were closed, so we found alternative hikes.

And I found alternative roads to run.

Isaac Barnes—Please summarize your life in four words:

Back home again, still more distractions.

Twice a year, we’ve got to send a barrel and buckets away to get turned into honey sticks.

You wouldn’t believe the hang-ups that can be caused by a pandemic. It turned a two-day process into a week. And that’s just getting them out of here.

So eventually, maybe this coming week?, we’ll find our way to the bees. Two yards are pulled. (43 to go!) I think I can knock off an average of three a day if I could only free myself from all these fits and starts.

Maybe next week Jayne (or I) will tell you all about this year’s Spring Harvest.

It’s beautiful stuff, I’m telling you.

…But then again, there is that cat to think about…