A Night Time of Memories

Lughnasa                                                 Waxing Harvest Moon

A night time of memories, a star dust state of mind, hearing the tenor sax and the clarinet in the distance, touching the hand of one I love, singing ourselves to sleep.

Feel like a shadow facing the moon, happy to be safe, blending in.

Have you ever flown over a darkling forest, felt your feathers buffeted by breezes pushing the trees aside?  Heard the small ones running, skittering, trying to get out of the way as you pass over head?  Then you know what it is to be a bird of prey, one death symphony on the wing.

These are the hours of quiet, the muffled world fades and the cicada sings.  Perhaps the only noise comes from clouds passing by in front of the moon, a whisper of weather as it moves on to its next appointment.

Silent here now.  The sax and the clarinet have faded away, the owl has gone to its perch, the clouds have gone to Wisconsin and I’m here alone.

Honey Finished Up

Lughnasa                                          Waxing Harvest Moon

The new honey labels are on all the jars.  And we still have a few more jars to fill.  This is a lot of honey, much more than we need, perhaps even more than we can give away.  A season’s work worth the effort.

The honey buckets have been cleaned, as has the extractor and the uncapping bins, the hot knife and the sink.  We have another gallon or so of honey left, not in jars.

 

Bee Diary: Bottling 2011

Lughnasa                                                      Waxing Harvest Moon

The honey harvest has moved to the bottling stage.  Kate has dozens of jars filled already, quarter pint, half pint, pint and quart (peanut butter jars). We’ll give them out as gifts, tips for good service, for barter.

I’d say our harvest this year was twice what it was last year, an amount that seems to make sense, so I think two colonies is plenty.

Mark Odegard’s label, utilizing art work from a friend of his in Duluth, is snazzy.  It features a northern Artemis, bow pulled with geese flying above her.  I’m going to Duluth this week or next to deliver payment for the art work.  Honey.

Kate’s quick treatment of my multiple stings:  cold shower, benadryl and prednisone minimized the post-sting trauma.  I have no psychological aversion to the bees; they were just doing their bee thing, so bee-keeping will continue as part of our gardening, orchard, apiary set-up here.

The honey harvest has this strange phenomena associated with it, one I imagine farmers feel when they harvest crops in the fall.  All the work, hiving the packages, feeding them, putting pollen in, adding hive boxes and doing reversals, putting on a queen excluder and slapping on the honey supers all lead to this one day, removing the honey supers, extracting the honey and bottling it.  All that work and a very quick finish.  Very satisfying, but a little strange in the brevity of the final, sought after act, the penultimate purpose of all of it.

The ultimate purpose, of course, is honey consumption.

Almost done with the bee work for the year.  I’m reading to lay down my smoker and hive tool and to pick up the Oxford Latin Dictionary.  Ovid will get more time now.