Your Gifts

Spring weather in Colorado is crap-shoot. It could be beautiful or it could be a snowy/rainy/windy mess. So when I was planning on buying my bee packages, that I am getting from two suppliers, I put the pick ups on to separate weekends. I am so glad I did. When you order a package of bees, something I've written about before, there's no waiting, nor moving your pick up time because the bees come on one or two weekends in the spring in a truck from California. Just days before, big hives, have had their bees shaken into a small screened in box until there is about 3 lbs. of bees in them. Then a new mated queen, in a queen cage, is put in the cage and it's closed off with a can of sugar syrup with a few holes in it to feed the bees during transport. Then a driving team drives them straight to the drop off point, in this case one of the stops was Colorado Springs where I ordered the packages a couple of months ago. After a beautiful week, on Friday night a wet cold front moved in and as it does here in the Spring, the rain quickly became a wet sloppy snow. Be pick up was to start at 6 am but an early email was sent to all bee buyers that our bees would arrive more like 10 am. So on Saturday the 27th of April, I relaxed at home as I watched the snow come down heavily. Then at 10 am I drove to Colorado Springs about 45 miles away. It was still snowing when I arrived and the temperature was 33 degrees. As I found a place to park and I saw people walking by with their packages of bees. When I got to the store, I was put in a line with over 50 0ther people that snaked through the store until you talked to a clerk who verified my order and gave me a card to go outside to the bees. Outside they pulled two packages off the stack, thumped the bees down so they would expose the queen in her cage, I verified the queen was alive and the I had my two packages to take back to the car. I wrapped them in an old towel and walked the block back to my car. And then I drove the 20,000 bees back to home. It was way too cold to put the bees in their hive. 45 degrees is the lowest you can put bees in a hive and it helps if the temperature is going up. So the two packages of bees went down into our basement at 60 degrees and I sprayed the bees with sugar water to ensure the ones that could not get to the feeder got fed. I also put a piece of tape over the small hole in the cage where the bees found a way out. Bees are funny there are always a few stragglers that cling to the outside of the package and they just ride along until you put the bees in a hive. Luckily Sunday it warmed to 45 degrees quickly and went into the 50s and the girls only had to spend one night in the basement. The first two restarted hives were the Gumbees and the Frizbees. Saturday the 4th of May dawned cloudy and windy with a promise of Sun mid morning. These bees came from Wardle Feed in Wheat Ridge. Wardle sent an email asking that the first half of the alphabet pick up your bees between 6 am and 7:30 and the second between 7:30 and 9 am. I was driving up with my friend Steve Zahnow so we got there a little after 7. They handled their bees a bit different. Much less "agricultural" than Rocky Mountain Bee Supply. They sent lots of emails the previous week when they too handed out bees in the snow. Unlike Rocky Mtn's one email explainaing the truck was late. At Wardle they don't thump your bees, they just check them before you come and you drive up and they put your packages in your car. So about 7:15 we were driving back to Steve's with about 30,000 bees in the car. It was still windy and cold. After dropping off his package of bees we went to my house for his first in person bee lesson. I am mentoring Steve so he can learn to keep bees too. Finally after an hour the clouds broke up and the day warmed quickly. Steve helped me set up my next two hives. I tried something different this time and I think it will be my new way of installing bees. The former way of installing bees is that you open the package, pull out the queen cage, remove two of the frames and dump in the bees. Most of them drop in the hive but many take flight. Then they try to find their way back into the hive. I had seen on YouTube that many bee keepers remove half of the frames, then they remove the queen cage, set it between two frames and place the entire package of bees in the hive and put the lid on the hive. It's so easy and puts less stress on the bees. They just walk out of the cage and back toward the queen. A few hours later you open the hive, pull out the cage that is now empty, shake the few bees on the out side of the cage into the hive and replace the 5 frames. Definitely the way I'll be doing packages in the future. Last week I found eggs in the Frizbees so their queen is laying. That means new bees in 21 days, from the time they were laid. I hope the queen of the Gumbees is also laying, she wasn't quite laying eggs yet, it takes a few days for a newly mated queen to be ready to lay. The hives we started this weekend were the NewBees and our newest hive the Airbnbees. I release their queens on today, Tuesday. So year three of my beekeeping adventure is on it's way. It's so nice to have bees again!

When it comes to one line wisdom sayings I have my list. Such as: Never argue with an idiot, people cant tell the difference. I later learned that saying was a short version of Mark Twains quote: "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." My Dad used to say, never sleep with a woman who is crazier than you. But the one that really stuck with me and has had numerous applications in my life is from the rock band 39 Special. Hold on loosely, but don't let go. When I was Scoutmaster of Troop 260 our Spring fund raising was done by aerating lawns. For two weekends in April we'd run aerators on lawns all over town. It was exhausting work but very profitable for the Troop. I was always amazed by the other dads who I knew were stronger and younger than me, that were exhausted after only a couple of lawns. As I watched them it was because they tried to muscle the machine, rather than guide the machine. If you're not familiar with an aerator it's a heavy machine that has a drum on it with 4 inch hollow spikes that your run across a lawn and pull out plugs of grass and soil to allow water and nutrients through the layer of thatch and roots that are in all lawns. As it runs the spikes go into the ground and they obviously grip and they can pull you along. I would say to them, when you aerate you have to think about 38 Special. They'd look at me funny and I'd continue, you have to: hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly you're gonna lose control. Working with the aerator you can guide it while it goes across a lawn and it's very easy. You need to consider where you want to end up before you start and if you guide the machine it will go, but try to muscle it and it will win every time. So both my boys know this song as the "aeration song." The song is actually about managing a relationship and again it's wisdom is timeless. You can use this with your spouse your kids, your relatives, your friends, your direct reports at work, heck it even works with your dog! But the message is you can't control many things, especially other people. You can influence them, just not control them, even if you sign their paycheck. When it comes to being married it's a great lesson again. However you can also mis-use the words. As far as holding on loosely, sometimes in a marriage the only thing you have to hold onto is each other. Especially when going through life's trials. If the two of you aren't turning inward for support first, well you might ask yourself why. But like all things there are times you have to hold on loosely so the other person can get information from other sources. So you may just have to let them get the advice while you are still available to them. Often the words of a true friend can be heard and accepted while being a bit more honest. Kind of like when you wear something that may not look the best on you, your friend may be able to be more honest or direct than your spouse without hurting your feelings. As I write this MLW and I are coming up on 36 years of marriage. If asked how we've stayed married that long, I'll often say a few things. First don't sweat the small stuff. Forget the arguments, forget the comments that were intended to be funny but weren't. If something hurts your feelings, before you let it fester, find a time to say, when you said ... it made me feel.... Talk it through and then forget it. In other words don't look for fight. Find friends with strong marriages and spend time with them and learn from them. The inverse is true too. If you find yourself doing things with a couple who is toxic, stop doing things with them. MLW and I tend to make jokes out of some of our biggest fights. It's a great way for us laugh about silly things we fought about that were so intense at the time but were really pretty silly. Here's an example: About 20 years ago we were driving through Missouri coming back from a family reunion. We were driving the truck and pulling the camper and MLW was at the wheel. I looked up and saw that traffic had stopped for someone in our lane turning left. I try not to be a backseat driver but I saw the upcoming hazard and just said "brake" MLW who did not see the hazard, looked at me and said what? I said with more urgency in my voice, "Brake", but MLW was still not getting the message, so I yelled and pointed for her to see the now quickly approaching accident "BRAKE!" She slammed on the brakes the trailer swerved we left a few skid marks and we did not have an accident. However with all the adrenaline in our bodies, and argument quick ensued: Why didn't you hit the brake?! I thought you were saying "Blake!" Why the hell would I say Blake!?!?! I don't know that's what I was trying to figure out! It continued with a few terse words, then driving in silence for 20 minutes, then as she does, MLW said at some point "traffics slowing down I suppose I should Blake". Now some twenty years later if either of us see an approaching hazard, we'll likely say, you might be ready to Blake... We both smile and whomever is driving slows down. Why does this work in our marriage? We both owned a stupid argument. Then we turned it into something that is ours. It's our experience, it's become our language. It means little to anyone else, but to us, it's basically saying "I love you" and the same time warning the other they might need to slow down. That's holding on loosely, but you are letting go of the anger, but not of our love for each other. Because if we had clung too tightly to the emotions of that silly argument, we would have lost control. So whether you think of aerating, dating, relationships, or just trying to eat a big messy sub sandwich, when you hear that song playing on the radio. I urge you to listen to those wise words and incorporate that thinking into your life. Because many times in life, if you'll just loosen your grip a bit, you'll find you'll enjoy most any experience much more.

In December our little college bungalow in Grand Junction became empty. Our last renters moved out and Smooch had already moved home. It had done it’s job giving Smooch and his roommates a nice place to live during their college years. But Smooch learned as many of us do that is first job was not what he wanted to do for a living and the draw of more jobs brought him back to the front range. It also became time to sell the Grand Junction house. The first thing you learn when your kids live in a house that you own is that they are homeowners in training. They don’t clean as often as you’d like, the lawn is not as pretty as it could be and maintenance happens when something is broken, not when you can see it needs maintenance before it breaks. MLW and I quickly learned that the holiday season was too busy to even think about going over on a weekend, so we started cleaning up the house in January. That’s when you realize just how far Grand Junction can be from Sedalia. Most folks will tell you its a 4 hour drive. But that four hours is if you can drive in the middle of the day or at night. In winter you’re in the middle of ski season, so you must time your departure with ski traffic in mind, or your 4 hour drive quickly becomes 5,6,7 hours or longer. Then there’s weather and if the passes are going to be open. Vail pass, while it may be on a major interstate highway, is still at 10,666 feet. And yes that 666 in the number means it can be the devil. From snow slides to snow slide mitigation and just weather and traffic, you always have to watch the weather and the traffic in the winter. That was for may years your only worries, traffic, which is also busy as soon as nice spring weather comes until the last aspen leaf falls in the fall. But now since the fire in Glenwood Canyon, you have to be prepared for mudslides due to rain. If Glenwood Canyon closes, the detour is 4 more hours. So again it’s not just get in your car and drive, especially when you have things to get done in Grand Junction. That’s also why I look at people funny who suggest we keep the house as a rental. In January the weekend cleanings began. We aware able to get over there about 4 times and in that time cleaned, painted and repaired. 20 year old-ish boys are very hard on a house. From holes in walls to holes in doors, the house takes the brunt of their life's frustrations. We could have named several of the holes after Smooches former girlfriends. There was also one hole that held a 40 oz. bottle of beer. When we went to repair that, Smooch said, "no you can’t patch that, it’s the 40 hole!" Given that most house buyers would see it as nothing more than a hole, it too was patched and painted. I think it took 4 weekends and finally in March the house was on the market. We had it under contract in less than 48 hours. How easy! Well not so much. Little did I know the potential buyers did not qualify for the price of the house but a much lower number and they wanted us to give them money from the sale to close. Everything was a nickel and dime transaction until we finally said “no” and the sale fell through. This past week after some serious back and forth we finally got the house under contract again. This time the buyers are prequalified. I am cautiously optimistic, but am waiting for the inspection to see what things they’ll ask for. The house was built in 1954, so the basement has what is probably asbestos tile on the floor. It’s in good shape and mostly covered anyway, but it just sits there for the new buyers to quibble over. It didn’t bother us because of all our years in insurance, we understand that asbestos is not as the plaintiff attorneys would like you to think. So I don’t know what’s more stressful, having the house under contract and waiting to see if it’s going to close, or having it up for sale and waiting for the “perfect” buyer to come and buy it. But we are closer to having it sold than not and if this sale makes it, there will be another parent, watching the weather and the traffic to travel to Grand Junction, where they own a house their kid lives in.

We found out a few weeks ago that E and NP are having a baby. That’s a conversation with a lot of emotions. I’d try to list out the emotions that hit me but they were much more like an emotion snowball than a stream of thoughts. They told us the news and bam! The emotion snow ball hit me in the head and my thoughts went something like this: What! Really?, oh my gosh am I that old? Oh that’s cool, scary, terrifying, happy, exciting, news! Wait, am I really that old? When did that happen? I guess the kids are 30 now, Stop thinking about how old you are, this is happy news! Oh my gosh will it be a little boy or girl? I can’t wait to build a swingset and camp in the backyard. Wait, I’ll be how old when he/she graduates from high school!!, Geez, get off the age thing already. But wait E was just a little boy the other day, how can he be a Dad? (eyes well-up), Oh thank the Lord it’s not Smooch telling me this, Whew! Yay!..... That was the abridged version because that was in the first second of hearing the news. It went on, in fact it still goes on, especially the “old” part, just a bit slower now. In many ways it doesn’t seem real. NP isn’t showing yet, and I think that’s when it’s really going to start feeling real. Speaking of feeling “real” they let us know it’s going to be a girl. Now it’s getting… real-er. NP’s sister Kaeleen is also pregnant, due around July 1. NP is due Oct 13. I had a very strong hunch that once we found that Kaeleen was pregnant, that NP would be close behind. How fun for their kids that they’ll have cousins close by and the same age. I am excited to have a granddaughter. MLW and I always figured God knew what we would be best at and he gave us boys. My friends with teenage girls roll their eyes when I tell them I had wanted a daughter. They laugh and tell me I dodged a bullet there. Either way I think the boys turned out alright and now I’ll get that little girl to play with after all. Now it’s time to wait and think about the big adventure E & NP are about to embark on, and try not to think about how old I am…

For the first time in almost 2 years I am bee-less. After the frustrating summer I had where I lost the Gumbees to a combination of weak queen, then the killing of the new queen by the hive. Then to have the false hope that the three queen cells I found in the hive could hatch, only to have two of them killed by robbing bees in my nucleus hives and the one left in the Gumbee hive failed to hatch. So that was the end of the Gumbees. After a very nice honey harvest the New Bees looked like they were doing great, that's when I found they and the Frizbee's had an explosion of mites. I did what I could to treat them, but then again the robbing bees came and they emptied the entire New Bee hive and killed the queen. When I opened the hive in early September, it was empty but for some opportunistic yellow jackets who were looking for any left over honey. Then all that was left was the Frizbees. I found they had raised a new queen. How did I do that? Well by accident actually. My previous queen was marked, when I inspected the hive in September, a new queen walked across one of the frames as if to say hello. So I prepped them in December for winter with their insulation and a candy board. But the hive was weak from the previous mite infestation and the deep freeze of early January was too much for the hive. On a warm day in late January I opened the hive to find thousands of dead bees. What a sad day. I thought I could avoid losing bees by taking classes, watching videos and reading books. Which all really helps. But like many things in life, a big part of beekeeping is doing. I've learned a bunch from my experience and the additional class I have taken on mite control. So on April 27th, I'll start over with 4 packages of bees. You'll remember that'll be 4 hives. I'm buying them from two different suppliers so I'll have some different genetics in the hives. I have to change how I manage my apiary. My 4 packages of new bees is going to cost me $600 as it is and I'm going to need some new strategies to keep these girls healthy and safe. First I need to stop the other bees in the area from robbing and killing my bees. The worst time for robbing is Spring and especially Fall when the flowers stop producing nectar. What really got my hives last year was the hard freeze followed by 6 weeks of nice weather. The lack of flowers sends bees out looking for weak hives. When they find one, they over power it, and literally suck up all the honey and carry it off to their hive. It takes just a day to do that and what you are left with is ripped open honey cells and the dead carcasses of the bees who tried to save the hive. Ultimately when it's obvious they are overpowered the remaining bees join in with their captors and live with them. How do I stop that? This year my hives are going to all have robbing screens on them from day one. A robbing screen is a screen that goes over the front of the hive. It allows the smell of honey to escape so robbing bees are attracted to that like they are to the opening of a hive. But the difference is they cant get in. Their instincts tell them to follow the scent of the honey so they cluster on the screen wondering why they cannot get in. The bees in the hive however have learned that need to enter the hive from an opening in the top of the screen. So they go merrily about their business while the robbing bees sit on the screen. Should a robber find the opening to the hive, the guard bees will quickly either escort the bee out or kill it. Either way, robbing works by a mass number of robbing bees overtaking the guard bees and then robbing the hive. Without a mass attack, the hive can protect itself. Second I have to get diligent about mites. Mites are tricky. They get into your hive both by jumping off a bee on a flower and jumping on the next bee that stops at that flower and by what we call bee drift. Bee drift is when a bee mistakes a hive for hers and she comes in. Most folks think well she'll be stopped by the guard bees and that's a big maybe. Why because bees are a lot like us. If you have a neighbor you don't really like but he stops by with a cold case of beer on a hot day when you're especially thirsty, you'll probably let him in. Bees are no different, if a bee loaded up with nectar comes into a hive that is not hers, they bees will let her in to drop off her nectar, sometimes they'll even give a lost or tired bee from another hive a little nectar pick me up. They are very social, and they often feed each other from their proboscis. So if that visiting bee had a mite and it jumps off in the hive, that one mite in the hive that will become 3 to 8 mites in about 8 days. If that visiting bee had a disease, that mouth to mouth feeding just spread it to the bee that fed it. Those robbing screens will help stop bee drift, but not the mites that jump on the bees from flowers. How do you control mites? First by monitoring every two weeks. You test your bees by taking out a 1/2 cup of bees in a jar with 1/8 hardware cloth across the top. Next you coat them with powdered sugar which makes mites lose their grip on the bees. Then you shake the bees against the hardware cloth so the mites all out. Then you count the mites and pour out all the little white bees into the hive where their fellow bees will lick all the sugar off them. You want to stay at or below 3% infestation. However, really you want as few as possible. You wouldn't tolerate just having 3 mice in your house, or three cockroaches, so like that you have to always work toward zero. There are non chemical treatments and chemical treatments for mites. Powdered sugar sprinkled in the hives helps knock off the mites who then fall out of the hive through the screen bottom board. Using green drone comb is another. This is an interesting and very effective way to kill developing mites. Drones are larger and take 3 extra days to hatch. Mites lay their eggs an developing bee larvae. Somehow they know that drone larvae are better to lay their eggs on so they prefer to jump in drone cells just before they are capped over. Then in the cell they lay 3-6 eggs that hatch and when the drone comes out so do 3-8 mites, some already attached and feeding from the fat stores in the new drone. To stop that process you put on frame of drone comb in the hive. the foundation which has been imprinted with larger cell foundations is drawn out by the bees and it's bigger. When the queen comes to that frame to lay eggs she notices the difference and puts unfertilized eggs in those cells which become drones. The mites as I said are drawn to the comb as well. When the comb is 75% sealed over, the frame of drone larvae and the the mites on them are put in the freezer for 2 days. The drones, which are not necessary for the operation of the hive are sacrificed as are hundreds, maybe thousands of mites. The comb you took out is replaced with another frame of drone comb and when that one is 75% capped over again you freeze that one. The one you froze the first time is put back in the hives where the bees will open up the cells and remove the dead drones and prepare the comb to be laid in again. There are other ways to control mites, but I could write about them for pages. Finally with 4 hives I will have enough bees to try again to raise my own queens. Having a nucleus hive or two with a spare queen will alleviate the problem I had when the Gumbees lost their queen late in the season. If I'm successful I'm make sure that nucleus hive will also have a robbing screen on it! Hope springs eternal, and as we get closer to the end of April, I'm excited to start some new hives and enjoy working with my cute little bees. Some of you are thinking, bees aren't cute , but I disagree and I'll point out that scientists have proven that bee brains can imprint human faces, even under a bee veil. Which is likely why when I work my bees they rarely get angry. They've learned that big guy poking about isn't going to hurt them. They might also realize I feed them, but who knows? What I do know is I've never had a hobby that I love as much as beekeeping, and I've never had a hobby that helps the earth as much or more than it does me.

Last year one of my most commented-on blogs was one I did on having some levity going into the holidays. I thought I would give another attempt at some holiday levity this year. This year I wanted to talk about when we take things out of context and how many times the double entendre version of something taken out of context can be extremely funny. While this first story doesn't have a double entendre, I will always think back to probably 25 years ago when my parents were alive and living in Lafayette CO. They were in a rental house with a large yard that afforded my Mom to have a large garden that backed up to the alley. In those days my mom worked at the local Albertson’s deli and she would leave early in the morning for work, but before she did she would turn on the sprinkler in her garden. One day she returned home to my father who was rather distraught . As they talked he discussed that the neighborhood was a buzz because a murdered man's body was found directly behind their house in the alley against the fence that separated my mom's garden from the alley. As my mom listened to this story all of a sudden she blurted out “Oh my gosh I must have watered him!” That was one of my mom's many funny mis-statements. One that still makes me laugh was when we had the candy store in the mall in Fort Collins in the 1980’s. We would see most of the managers from Montgomery Wards during their break times as they would come to our shop for coffee. One Valentine's Day, Bob, a constant customer of ours came in and he had a heart pin on his lapel. My mom looked at him and said “Oh Bob I see you have a little heart on.” When she heard what came out of her mouth my mother promptly found something to do in the back of the shop until breaktime for the Wards employees was over. When I was big game hunting with the boys and Hayden’s father-in-law Ken, Ken said something that I realized you couldn't say in any other context and make any sense of it. Ken, is a big believer in using animal scents, especially doe deer and cow elk urine as an attractant when hunting big game. As we would leave to hunt most mornings one of Ken’s parting questions, to make sure everyone had what they need, was to call out “Does anyone need any piss this morning?” As the Christmas Holiday approaches, MLW makes her repertoire of holiday cookies, one of which is rum balls. Which technically are bourbon balls as we like the taste better than using rum. The other day she was making her cookies and at 9 am proudly proclaimed “ I finished another bottle of bourbon!” Not something I usually hear from my wife at 9 am, but I wish a neighbor had! And Finally the last one was said the other night at a white elephant party. My friend, whom I wont name, was deciding during his turn if he was going to steal a gift or unwrap another . Smooch who opened a large summer sausage that is sold under the name “Yard O’ Beef” and wanted to get rid of it, said to him: “are you sure you don’t need a Yard O’ Beef?” To which my friend replied “I don’t think my colon could handle a yard of beef.” I wish I could tell you I left that alone, but no. With that I wish you all a happy holiday and for the ability to pick up the double entrée’s, the ridiculous statements and the absurd this holiday season, and laugh all the way through the holiday.

I was reminded the other day of these lyrics from Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby’ from the holiday movie: White Christmas: If you’re worried, and you can’t sleep, just count your blessings Instead of sheep, and you’ll fall asleep, counting your blessings. Those words and the story below, got me thinking that during the holidays, we especially need to count our blessings. I had just started my morning when the phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Jessica, (not her real name) an employee that had a work comp injury. I picked up the phone, immediately I knew something was wrong. She blurted out, no one at the office will pick up my calls, I need to tell somebody that my son can’t open the restaurant today, Mike (her husband) died in his sleep! If you have ever had to make or receive that call, you know what followed, the intense crying, the wavering jerky speech. I did my best to stay calm, and help her navigate the barrage of emotions hammering her mind, then I too cried with Jessica as she told me what happened. I continued to answer her as random questions bounced in her brain, unconnected to the line of speech but ever so expected in the midst of a person in shock and crisis. Before February of 2023 I could not have told you who the manager of our restaurant in the small California mountain town was, nor who was the relief manager. But when a white man filled with hate saw Mike, the relief manager, taking his break, eating his lunch in the restaurant, the man decided he needed to make a statement. That hate filled statement was an attack on that black man, eating his lunch. In the scuffle that would result, Mike would come out of it with a broken finger. That’s how we met, over his work comp claim. Mike was a kind, quiet man, his wife Jessica 14 years his junior was white. It was Jessica who would call me and raise concerns about the work comp process, including the waiting and the traveling. It was Jessica who would call out the doctors that gave contradicting medical advice, the nurse case manager she thought was rude and too direct. All these complaints fell to me, after all that’s my job. So when I was in California for another meeting a couple of months into Mike’s claim and recovery, I made plans to have lunch with Jessica and Mike. When we met, the company had transferred her, Mike and Mike’s son, to another restaurant in the town where they lived. Now close to the Sacramento airport, the town they were in was agriculture based and seemed like a nice town. For the first time since they moved there they started to feel a sense of community. Jessica had neighbors who worked for her and it seemed life was finally turning around. During our 90 minute lunch I heard much about the move and Mike’s challenges with treatment for his injury. Jessica was definitely the voice in this relationship and she spoke for her much more soft spoken husband. It was a good lunch and we made the connection you just can’t make over the phone. As the months passed, I had more calls from Jessica and we continued to navigate Mike's recovery. The calls would start with a problem they were having and they would end with me either fixing the problem or promising to do so. Over time they started to realize this old Eagle Scout kept his promises. Unfortunately the dark cloud followed them to the new restaurant. On the first day of September, three men, also filled with hate or simply the needed cash, made plans to rob the restaurant. When the Covid-masked customer in the hoodie approached the counter on that day, pulled out a weapon and asked for the money in the register, the cashier panicked. The cashier panicked because young people today have learned from growing up in an era of school and public shootings, that gunmen sometimes didn’t want money, they wanted to kill people. So instead of following training and simply giving the gunman money, the cashier ran, as did the rest of the staff for the back door. The gunman wanted money wasn’t going to be getting it, so he jumped the counter and chased the employees. Whether he intended or not his gun went off. The bullet would go through the hip of an 18 year old employee, take with it a chunk of his pelvic crest, travel through his small intestine, then exit and hit another employee where it would come to rest in the other employees buttocks. As this mayhem was occurring, Jessica fell while fleeing, injuring her shoulder. I was camping when the calls started coming in. Luckily I had cell service and my computer. For the next 90 minutes I reported all the injured workers so they could get the treatment, they needed. I also contacted Cal-OSHA and other required reporting. But the hard part was the conversation with Jessica. She talked to me in an emotionally charged state that went from anger, frustration and fear. Little did I know that day that as I heard for the first time her voice waver and crack as she began to cry, that I would hear it again in 3 short months. Jessica was the Mom many of these 5 employees didn’t have. In her injured state and struggling to process the event, she was still answering questions for the crews in her restaurant, and even taking injured workers to their doctor appointments. When we learned this, I had a conference with my superiors and it was decided that Jessica needed to send all her problems through me. She had to stop answering calls from the restaurant so she could work on healing herself. It took a week or so, but everyone at the regional office was forbidden to answer her calls, the employees at the restaurant had to stop calling her and all her calls came through me. So that’s why when she tried to wake her husband up 2 weeks ago and he didn’t respond that she called me. I’m still her main contact. Now I talk with her on almost a daily basis, and help her navigate her benefits and life insurance. Help her find her free or low cost legal service so she can understand how to resolve her late husband's estate. In her present state it’s easy for her to misconstrue the communications of others, so I am her interpreter. Basically I help this 34 year old woman, who has only her Mom to lean on, and who could easily be my daughter, navigate the darkest point so far in her life.. It’s in that contrast that I count my, actually our, blessings. Our blessing that if MLW and I should find ourselves at the pearly gates unexpectedly, that E and Smooch know who to call. To know we have so many good friends, that would surround them with love and help them navigate those dark waters. Friends that wouldn’t take the statement ‘I’m fine” at face value. We are indeed blessed with many blessings. But the greatest blessing is to be someone else's blessing. Giving to those in need, whether it’s a warm coat, a shoulder to cry on or help navigating life’s challenges. Those are the real blessings. Not just this time of year but year round. Because when you do that, you help not just that other person, but you help yourself. You realize all your trials in life made you an asset to someone else. When you can give to others, that is what makes it so much easier to fall asleep counting your blessings.

In my constant attempt to update and beautify our home, I do quite a bit of woodwork. I love the feel and look of natural wood. But what I really enjoy is what the wood looks like after it’s stained. The wood grain shows through and you can see how the tree grew and how the lines in the wood move and shift through the grain. Natural wood is beautiful, but it’s even more beautiful when it’s stained. That led me to think about how we are drawn to things in the world that are “stained.” I don’t mean literally, I mean how we are drawn to the imperfect. Have you ever seen a three legged dog that is smiling and happy as it goes on a walk or plays ball? It’s hard not to want to pet this animal because they have overcome their adversities and moved onto a happy life. I think in many ways that is why we are so impressed with people such as amputees who live a complete and rich life. We’re even more impressed when we see athletes in the Para and Special Olympics, who take their bodies as they have them and do amazing things. They may not have the all the parts of a typical human, but despite their shortcomings, their “stain” if you will, they show they are beautiful, they are worthy, they can be and are loved. I believe the same is true for how we are seen by our God. While He loves those who have all the best attributes, I truly believe that like we are drawn to that three legged dog, or to cheer on a para athlete, He is drawn to those who are stained and imperfect. Because He, like us, is drawn to those who despite their shortcomings strive to be their best. We all cheer for those who overcome their shortcomings, as does our Maker. So don’t ever shy away from God because you’re imperfect. Because just like wood, your stain makes you beautiful.

Many of you ask about the bees so I thought I'd take some time today and give you an update. The bees had an interesting summer. When I began beekeeping and I finished my first year, I was talking to a more seasoned beekeeper who when I told her I had a year under my belt shecalled me a newbee. I was a bit offended by this because I'd taken a number of classes, read a number of books and I thought that I was more prepared than your average beekeeper. However what I learned from this past year was that beekeeping is indeed something that you get better at the more you experience it. I started this year with my original 2 colonies and added a third in early May; The Newbees. I absolutely loved the Newbees. They were so prolific. They built out comb faster than my other bees. They were voracious foragers and they filled honeycomb faster than my other hives. I was so excited to have them. In July I wrote a blog about my troubles with the Gumbee hive. Although I tried and tried to create a new queen for the Gumbees all of my efforts were for naught. I had found 3 queen cells in the beehive and I moved two of them for safekeeping into smaller nucleus hives. Those hives would later be robbed by other hives and all of the bees were killed. The queen cells also were killed and the one I left in the Gumbee hive never hatched. Finally in August I mixed the Gumbees with the Frisbees so they would have a hive to call home. That last statement may have a number of you thinking, you can blend hives? Yes you can. If you have a queenless hive, you open the hive you are going to introduce them into, you place a sheet of newspaper on top of the hive and make several slits in it so they can smell the new hive. Then you place the queenless bee hive on top of the newspaper. The bees will chew their way through the slits and the remaining newspaper and the hives will blend without any fighting. In September I had a pretty good honey harvest. My first real honey harvest came in at around 55 to 60 pounds of honey. In October and the first half of November, we had a very long Indian summer, which is not particularly good for bees. Technically Indian summer is the warm weather after a hard freeze. Hard freezes kill all of the flowers and leaves the bees nowhere to forage and find nectar. They still will find some pollen but often the flowers are no longer producing nectar which gives you basically armies of bees that are instinctively drawn to find nectar and honey. This makes Indian summers very hard on hives as it is a time when stronger hives attempt to rob smaller hives of their honey. It was during this time that my newbies were savagely attacked by another hive. The result was a completely empty hive of honey and bees. The attacking bees stole all the honey, killed the queen and the bees that were not killed were recruited to live with their captors. My remaining hive for the winter is the Frisbees. They have managed to do very well this year even though there was a time in late summer Midsummer when they were not producing much honey. I would later come to find that they had decided to replace their queen. I was inspecting the hive in mid-october when I came upon a new unmarked queen. The queen who formerly lived in that hive had a yellow dot on her back; she was gone and a new unmarked queen was taking over the reign. I am happy to say that the bees have done a good job preparing for winter and if they are still alive in the spring I will find that queen and she will get a red dot On her thorax, noting that she was born in 2023. The week of Thanksgiving we had the last of our warm fall. Just before the weather turned, on a 65 degree day, I opened the Frisbee hive and put in their insulating board which has “bee candy” on one side of it. I then put the 1” insulating foam board around the hive and opened the bottom board of the hive about 2” Some beekeepers do not open the bottom board during winter, however the bees give off quite a bit of heat during the winter and it’s moist in the hive which can lead to condensation in the hive. If condensation drips on any of the bees during the cold weather they will die, so the opened bottom board allows for drier air to enter the hive and keep condensation to a minimum. For the next 4 or so months, the bees will make a clump around the queen and the workers will flex their wing muscles to give off heat and in doing so they’ll keep the queen at 92 degrees all winter long. Bees that normally live only about 35 days during the summer will live 160 days during the winter. During that time hold off until a day of 50 degrees or more to “relieve” themselves by leaving the hive to do their "business". Bees will not defecate in the hive, which is one of the reasons why they are so clean and hygienic. If the Frizbees make it through winter, I will purchase 3 new packages of bees and we’ll go into spring and summer with 4 hives. I’ll go into year 3 expecting these fuzzy little girls to again teach me more about beekeeping and remind me that while they may seem domesticated, they are still wild and unpredictable.