As I waited in the hot sun at the corner of Knight and 49th in one of the city's bus SWELTERS, an anise swallowtail fluttered high above the traffic. I was hot, dry, and pissed off. So many cars and so few buses. What is the deal? It took me two hours to get from my house in east Van to just across the bridge in Richmond. What a friggin' joke.
Luckily, when I arrived at the farm The Beekeeper's son sat calmly in the shade of the cherry trees. His dad had disappeared, but his son sat with me and scraped the old wax of the hive from frames. Some of the wood had become dark and brittle with age. The mystery of where The Beekeeper had disappeared to was solved when he showed up with raspberries that a neighbor had given him on a tour of the back lanes and gardens around the farm. Tragically, Milo lost his raspberry and tayberry canes when the ground they were planted on became flooded. Luckily, his neighbor has some canes from Milo's orginal stock. The berries are big, sweet, and juicy.
Every time we ask how Milo is doing he puts out his hand and waggles it saying, "The French say comme ci, come ça." I talked to his grandson last week about his love of tea so I gave him some Genmai Sencha. Milo says, "In my day when a woman gave a man a gift, he gave her a kiss. I blushed and Miles gave me a hug. Sweet.
We toasted the frames and nailed in the wax foundations. We took a look at the honey room and decided it needs a big old cleaning bee.
Milo's SIL picks a few transparent apples to make apple sauce and his daughter encourages us to pick some little zucchini. I took the 98B-line home and had much better bus karma. I sliced up two of the zukes and munched them down with red pepper humous.
As I waited in the hot sun at the corner of Knight and 49th in one of the city's bus SWELTERS, an anise swallowtail fluttered high above the traffic. I was hot, dry, and pissed off. So many cars and so few buses. What is the deal? It took me two hours to get from my house in east Van to just across the bridge in Richmond. What a friggin' joke.
Luckily, when I arrived at the farm The Beekeeper's son sat calmly in the shade of the cherry trees. His dad had disappeared, but his son sat with me and scraped the old wax of the hive from frames. Some of the wood had become dark and brittle with age. The mystery of where The Beekeeper had disappeared to was solved when he showed up with raspberries that a neighbor had given him on a tour of the back lanes and gardens around the farm. Tragically, Milo lost his raspberry and tayberry canes when the ground they were planted on became flooded. Luckily, his neighbor has some canes from Milo's orginal stock. The berries are big, sweet, and juicy.
Every time we ask how Milo is doing he puts out his hand and waggles it saying, "The French say comme ci, come ça." I talked to his grandson last week about his love of tea so I gave him some Genmai Sencha. Milo says, "In my day when a woman gave a man a gift, he gave her a kiss. I blushed and Miles gave me a hug. Sweet.
We toasted the frames and nailed in the wax foundations. We took a look at the honey room and decided it needs a big old cleaning bee.
Milo's SIL picks a few transparent apples to make apple sauce and his daughter encourages us to pick some little zucchini. I took the 98B-line home and had much better bus karma. I sliced up two of the zukes and munched them down with red pepper humous.
No comments:
Post a Comment