Backyard Beekeeper Nao Sims from Jaime Kowal on Vimeo.

Good News~

It has been a while since I have sat down with my tea on a quiet morning and ran my fingers across a keyboard. Weeks have been spent getting the bees ready for winter, harvesting the fruits of our labours and making all kinds of wonderful plans. In amongst our many plans, there is one I am bursting to share, one that I think you will also be inspired by.

As you know, there has been much time spent with the honeybees this year. Much time spent in awe of their diligent ways. Much time spent learning about what more we might do to support these winged friends in their important work.

We have come to the conclusion that we must do whatever we can to help the honeybees at this particular moment in time, for reasons that you can read about in just a moment, if click on the link at the bottom of this page.

And so I invite you dear readers, to have a look at what we have been building and creating over here. Welcome to Beecause Pollination Project.

Back to the Garden~

There is much to be thankful for this season. The bounty is truly something to marvel at. The plum tree is heavy with fruit, the squash are hiding their full round shapes under canopy's of green, the honey is just now off the hive and sitting on the kitchen table like a sweet golden elixir.

My hands are cracked and dry from dirt and sun, my body is sore from lifting 80 pound supers of honey and my is heart filled to the brim with awe for this incredible earth. The satisfaction is deep, the gratitude is infinite, the happiness that comes when eating spoon fulls of honey from the flowers in my own garden is simply indescribable.

I have spent very little time writing this summer, very little time thinking about how to put my experience into words and this has been a great relief. My mind can be as unruly as the vines climbing up our back shed and pruning back the thoughts has been rather a good thing for me. Instead of thinking about how to write about the honeybees magic I found myself sitting by the beehive, in a warm place, just listening to the hum. I enjoyed steamed greens from the garden without thinking about how to describe their flavour. I waded into the water with my dog without wondering how to document the suns effect on the waves. I can't say I have mastered this technique of "being in the moment" by any stretch. I can't even say it happens as much as I would like it to. I am definatly nowhere near enlightenment and I am sure that the Buddhists have a heckofalot to teach me, but I can say, that there are moments, when for a brief time, I have not been thinking. And I can say, that I liked this.

One whole year has gone by since I began this blog. And what a marvelous journey it has been, what a lot of fun and inspiration, what a lot of lovely folks I have met. I am so thankful to have had your company and experienced your kindness. Your encouraging words have given me so much joy and courage, thank you.

And now I am going to push away from the computer keyboard and head back into the garden where I will be taking the advice of my wise dog and doing less thinking and more being. I am not sure when I might be back in my cyberspace living room, but until then I wish you all basketful's of goodness. I wish you sweet mornings of golden light. I wish you peaceful afternoons and enchanted evenings. I wish you health, happiness and wholeness. I wish you magic in each and every exquisite moment of your life.

Just think of how sweet my tea will be this year!

BLESSED BEE~

Garlic Harvest~

I am not sure what it is about the garlic harvest that brings me so much deep down glee. This might be my favorite thing to harvest, if there could be such a thing. Perhaps it's the time that it takes a clove placed in the Autumn ground to mature into a complete bulb, 10 whole months. Sometimes it's the waiting that makes the goal that much more glorious. Or maybe it's in my blood, an ancestral inheritance from my Eastern European roots, perhaps this is a cellular love. Whatever it is, it is as strong and healthy as the garlic itself.

Garlic is my food and medicine, and it has been this way for as long as I can remember. There is no soup or stew complete without it, no better way to cure a cold or keep the flu away, of course you also run the risk of keeping others away too, but sometimes that's not so bad. Tis hard to tell, who's a vampire and who isn't sometimes. eh eh eh.

Otherwise these days have been spent far away from keyboards and indoor activities. There is an inch of dust covering everything in the house. There are 100 tasks needing doing, but I simply cannot give myself to them. The moment I am out of bed in the morning, I am outside, barefoot in the garden, as busy as the bees.

Ode to the Campfire!

There is a place in the wilds of British Columbia's interior where folks of all different kinds can live together in relative harmony. You don't believe me? Well, you should. I saw it myself, more than once, and I have marvelled at it for sometime now.

I am not sure what makes it possible for the redneck and the hippy to live on the same dirt road and manage to respect one another. I am not sure how the meat- eaters and the vegetarians can sit round the same campfire and marvel at the dinner before them. I still don't know what makes the hillbilly moonshine brewed in the back-shed still taste as lovely as the 10 year old single malt imported from Scotland's Isle of Islay. I can't understand what those who ride horses and those who ride Harley's have to talk about. And I can't figure out how the campfires built in those rugged hills can warm hearts as much as they do cold hands and feet, but you know, I don't think I care if I ever know the answer to these questions. I simply like that it happens.

Campfire and Kettle

I just spent a week camping beside the most magical lake, in the forested hills near my home town.

View from our tent

The mornings were spent with my little niece Senay collecting wild flowers and building sandcastles. The afternoons spent reclining on smooth soft drift wood with a good book, while Senay painted beach stones. The evenings were festive gatherings of good people.

Breakfast on the campfire

Morning's Flowers

Out there, under that starry sky, miles away from the civilized world the most interesting folks found there way down the dusty path to our Gypsy campsite. When the sun went down over the snow capped peaks and the campfire roared with flames, the people roared with laughter. All kinds of people sitting round a campfire with almost nothing in common, except perhaps a deep appreciation for this wild and wonderful earth. There is something really delightful about that, something hopeful and inspiring about a group of people gathered together who have nothing more than their humanness in common.

Indeed, I must admit, that as the years go by I am more interested in what makes us the same as opposed to all of those things that make us different. And I have to be honest and say that this hasn't always been the case. My life for a longtime was dedicated to being different. Oh the pains of proving ones uniqueness.

Setting Sun

When I was 18 years old I moved as far away from hometown as I could to celebrate my differences, to be known for my individual flare. Now almost 15 years later I have to laugh hard at the pull of my healthy and youthful ego. Sitting there with my wild family and those mountain people, I realized that what made me the most different from these good folks was my own harsh judgment, my own desire to be something other than what I am ~ a small town girl with an enormous love for the wild lands of my childhood.

So this post is dedicated to good hearted country people everywhere. What an honour it is to warm myself by your fires, to be accepted exactly as I am, for better or for worse. Ha! Your an inspiration!

Summer Days~

The summer days are passing by and there is much happiness as we munch on greens from the garden like goats, as we water and weed and stop to smell the flowers.

There is no such thing as time when I step barefoot on damp earth and bend down to harvest the green sweetness of new peas. No such thing as stress when I watch flowers open and surrender to their fate, whatever that may be. There is nothing else to think about when watching bees come home after a long day laden with pollen and purpose. Nothing to want when you are eating a dessert of freshly picked strawberries and whipped cream. Nothing to worry about when you realize that all things are born, bloom, fruit and eventually go back to the earth, only to be born again.

And on the days that take me out of the garden into the world of 9-5, the world of bus stops and hot asphalt, of scrubbed hands and shooed feet, I have only to think of the oasis that awaits me when I cross the threshold back into the growing paradise that is my blessed garden.

There is so much to be thankful for.

Oh the hum~

There are bees buzzing and flowers blooming.  

I cannot come in from outside. 

These days, I spend my mornings singing with the bees down by the hives. The bees hum their musical drone and lull me into their world of vibration and sweetness.   I watch the flowers opening to their honeybee lovers, under June's morning sun, and I marvel at the blessings all around me.  Gus sniffs the sweet honey smells at the hive entrance, curious, intrigued and very cautious.  The cats slumber in the shade of the raspberries, and Mark sips his coffee on the porch. 

Tis a most magical time~

Thou seemest-a little deity!

Anacreon, Ode 34,

To the bee ( fifth century BC)