Beekeeper Dan Comes For A Visit (Part 1)
By Eydie Wight
We had been anticipating a visit from Beekeeper Dan for a couple of weeks and just couldn’t seem to get schedules to mesh, so when he let us know that yesterday would work out, we were tickled pink. The day before we had racked our wines from carboy to carboy to get rid of the first lot of “settlement” (dead yeasties and fruit pulp and such) and had been delighted to find that our mead was not in “stuck fermentation” as we had feared and agonized over for better than a week, but was still working, just working at it’s own slow pace. Sammy had worried so much that he had driven after work (night shift) to our local wine making supplier and slept in the car (again) until they opened. He was advised to go home, have a home brew and relax and let the mead ferment at its own pace. That was okay with us, even though our yeasties ride the little yellow school bus, we still love them!
I had been having a shamefully laid back day off. I had slept the long sleep of one who was avoiding watching the the republican convention (or any other convention) and woke up early. It was promising to be a scorcher of a day, hot and humid, but the morning offered a coolish breeze as I fed the shed cats and house kittens, cleaned litter boxes, rinsed and refilled water bowls, rescued Guido’s tank mates from his cannibalistic hunger, and fed the dogs. Sammy has decided that we should try to limit our power usage to off grid hours so he had done a load of laundry near midnight. As I hung the clothes out on the line the hummingbirds seemed to be fascinated either by my pajamas or Sammy’s socks and underwear because they hovered for seconds at a time in front of me in a rather quizzical fashion.. Best not to speculate the ADHD mind of the hummingbird. House chores done, I poured my second cup of coffee and wandered out back to check out my fine bed of Stonecrop sedum that was in full bloom. It was covered with honeybees and I couldn’t wait to show Beekeeper Dan. They were beauties, amber abdomens with black stripes against the pink sedum flowers. I watched to see where they went as they flew off. Somewhere into the sun…
Next thing I knew it was time to take a nap. Night shifters as we are, day time functioning requires a mid afternoon nappy. I melted into the bed even before Sammy had finished checking his E-mail. 45 minutes later I sat bolt upright, gasped, and said, “Granny!” Sammy said, “Wzzzt wzzmm?” I said, ” I don’t have any food made to offer Dan!” My grandmother (Granny to us, God rest her soul) would have been appalled that I had company and didn’t offer to feed them something. It’s the code of the country that as soon as someone crosses your doorway you start trying to stuff food into them. I can remember coming home from college to visit my Granny and Granddad and no sooner had I hugged and kissed hello than Granny was pulling out platters of sliced ham or turkey and Granddad was taking a pan of cornbread out of the oven and soon the table was groaning under the weight of “a little snack to tide you until supper”. Sammy was, by this time snoring again so I laid there and quietly tossed and turned and fidgeted and wracked my brains for an idea. We had been putting off going to the grocery store for several days to maybe over a week or so and Old Mother Hubbard ruled the pantry. I had racks of canned stuff I was going to share, but few people other than me can really sit down an enjoy an entire meal of pickled beets.
So I lay there, mentally going over every offering of cupboards, pantry, fridge, and freezer. Freezer! I had it! The frozen blueberries from neighbor Dot! The day was saved and Granny’s spirit could rest easy. I got up and in short time had made a blueberry cobbler. Easy, and soooo tasty. Dot had frozen her blueberries in one cup baggies so I took four of these and ran cool water over them in a colander until they had thawed. In a medium saucepan I mixed a half cup of sugar and two tablespoons of cornstarch. To this I added the blueberries and heated the mixture, stirring constantly, until it boiled. This was allowed to boil for one minute (stirring) and then poured into an ungreased 2 qt. casserole. The oven had been preheated to 325 and the blueberries were placed into the oven while the topping was prepared. The topping consisted of a half cup of exceedingly lumpy brown sugar, a half cup of flour, a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a half cup of some multi grain high fiber cereal with oats and bran flakes, honey “clusters”, and rocks and twigs. A third cup of margarine was “cut” into this and this topping was crumbled on top of the blueberries. This was heated through until the topping was browned and crunchy. Since the topping was already crunchy this was a little hard to assess. I winged it and hoped for the best. If you don’t have any “twigs and rocks” cereal a half cup of oatmeal will do. And it really is better if the brown sugar isn’t lumpy. I had to beat mine with the side of the meat tenderizer until it submitted to my demand. (A recipe for Eydie’s Blueberry Cobbler)
Then I put together a care package for Dan of some of my recent canned goods, some flower seeds I’d been collecting (lunaria, hollyhock, poppy, zinnia, and marigold), and his empty honey jars and wine bottle. Next I did a quick poop scoop of the area around the house. Nothing kills the mood of a nice visit more than a shoe full of dog poop. The evening was shaping up nicely so I sat out on the deck with the mandolin and worked on the waltz “After the ball was over…”
Dan arrived on his Italian motorcycle. The purpose of his visit (other than a visit) was to asses our property for “bee worthiness” and discuss the best site for a hive. We also wanted to “talk chicken.” Sammy and I had been meeting such happy, friendly free range chickens over the past week that we wondered if a few might like to join our household. (And not be terrorized by the other animals. I, for one, have heard Guido express a fondness for chicken, should one ever pass near his tank.) More about our visit later.
A visit with Brother John!
By Eydie Wight
Like I said, Sammy and I were having a really good weekend. On Sunday, we decided to drive down to Lansdowne to visit Brother John and Kathy. My parents were going to be there and the menu was BLT’s with fresh homegrown garden tomatoes, fresh homegrown corn on the cob, and fresh homegrown peaches for dessert. Our dad has the Midas touch, the ultimate green thumb of gardening. It’s like gardening is a religion and he is the high priest. Each year he brings us buckets and small cartloads of fresh fruit and veggies. Both Brother John and Kathy, and Sammy and I strongly believe that it is the deepest sacrilege to let any of this bounty go to waste. (In fact, Brother John wrote his first, and only poem about just that very thing! Check it out in our Poetry Section). And since I have my own albeit less than worthy garden, we’ve learned to improvise. In true Bubba Gump fashion I make fried squash, squash in salads, squash casserole, squash pancakes, squash bread, squash pickles, canned squash, squash soup, squash and broccoli in cheese sauce. I’ve been known to lie awake in panic thinking I should get up and go eat a raw squash just to reduce the sheer numbers needing consumption.
Well, shortly after we arrived, Dad, Sammy and I started husking corn. Now my Mom has the deepest of aversions to even the tiniest scrap of corn silk. So we sat outside in the warm (freaking hot) sun talking (and sweating) about gardening, the corn crop of Sammy and I that was beautiful and bountiful and inedible because the the sewage leak, and picked the corn silk off a dozen or so ears for about an hour. Then Dad started cooking bacon while Mom and I cut and peeled tomatoes (another ick for my mom, tomato skin), and cut up lettuce. Sammy peeled the peaches (naked fruit is popular in my family.) We kept trying to get Dad to let someone take over the bacon while he sat down (he’s headed for a knee replacement in a few weeks) but, no one, repeat no one, can cook perfect bacon like Dad. We didn’t argue with him too much because we all know that, no one, repeat no one, can cook perfect bacon like Dad.
After we ate to the explosion point (I did go light on the corn at only four ears smothered with butter and salted like the briny sea) and cleaned up the dishes, I wandered over to the music cases and got out the mandolin. I picked out a few tunes while Brother John opened up Sammy’s guitar case. Sammy was already deep in a postprandial nap sitting up on the couch with his head thrown back, five seconds away from the rumbling snores that accompany his Bipap-less sleeps. Dad was on the big chair with that glazed look in his eyes that said a nap was ambling in his direction. Brother John started poking Sammy in the stomach with the guitar, poking harder and harder until Sammy finally stirred with a “I don’t want to go to work, ten more minutes.” I made the mistake of getting up to pee and lost the mandolin to John’s possession is nine tenths… I hadn’t brought the fiddle this time so I had to sing. We don’t get together very often so we do more pickin’ (trying to find a good key) and grinnin’ (oops, not that key) than tuneful artistry. I always had the reputation of only being able to carry a tune if I had a stout bucket, and only having a maybe one octave range on a good day, but Mom sang in a barbershop quartet for years and Brother John and Sammy are no strangers to a melody so we get the job done. We played and sang our grandfather’s usual tunes (Redwing, Old Joe Clark, Sourwood Mountain, and You Are My Sunshine) and Wildwood Flower, and some old hymns like I’ll Fly Away and Swing Low. My mom stole the harmony parts which I usually sing so I was haphazardly doing lead. I hate being Captain Kirk, I want to be Mr. Spock. But it was fun. Mom and Dad left and we picked around some Celtic tunes I like (House Carpenter, Star of the County Down, Sweet Afton) and then it was time for us to go. We discussed the proposed mead adventure standing by our car outside in the beautiful evening air while the mosquitoes treated Sammy like my Dad’s fresh garden produce and then started for home.