When we woke up early yesterday morning, we thought the excitement of our day was going to be Levi’s 8th grade graduation.
They fed us a mostly inedible breakfast (fruit is not supposed to taste like that) and we squirmed in the bleachers for what seemed like an eternity to our butts. Bless their hearts, his school isn’t full of the biggest talents. A bunch of kids sang really off-key. A girl played a cello piece and missed several notes. It was a really appropriate end to middle school, the most awkward period of anyone’s life. And Levi got his promotion certificate.
Then he took off for the water park with his friends and we had a day mostly to ourselves. Jess had the day off and I only had a two hour training class later in the day. So of course we went out for some real breakfast and power shopping. I was determined to finally get something to deal with our lawn. We may regret the work commitment, but we settled on this:
While we ran around to three different stores before finding a good deal on the mower, we managed to FINALLY find a new washer that fits in our laundry closet and is energy and water efficient. Have we not blogged about this dilemma yet? To sum it up, our 10 year-old, front-loading washer busted and the super efficient models they make nowadays are freaking huge. Don’t you think it is kind of ironic that in order to own the most efficient laundry machines of 2010 you have to live in a giant house? If you live a simple lifestyle in a tiny house, you have to pay more money for a less efficient machine that fits in your space. GAH. Anyway, we finally found something reasonably efficient that fits. At that moment, as we sat in Home Depot, the ceiling opened up and a giant rainbow streamed across the sky and angels started singing HALLELUJAH! The only downside is that I only get one more date with the Ms. Pacman machine at the laundromat.
We headed home feeling very pleased with ourselves, and I assembled our human-powered lawn mower while Jess puttered around in the backyard. I got the thing together and mowed about 3 rows of our lawn before Jess called me to the backyard. She had just sprained her wrist during yard work the day before and there was a bit of urgency to her voice, so I put down the mower and headed to the backyard. Jess looked at me wide-eyed and said ominously, “Something is going on with the bees.”
I looked up and our backyard was literally abuzz. There were bees everywhere. I know we have a lot of bees, but we don’t usually see so many all at once. They were everywhere. They seemed to be mostly converging over the gigantic laurel between our yard and the neighbors. “Oh god, I hope the neighbors don’t see that,” I thought. And Jess tried to convince me to come back there. I’m happy to participate in the beekeeping, but I don’t have a suit or veil. Levi and I normally just cover up really well and pull our hoodie strings tight. I was not about to walk into a sea of bees without protection.
Jess was in a daze and a bit of denial. My little walking bee-encyclopedia didn’t even have her bee suit on! I told her to go get her veil. “I’m pretty sure your bees are swarming. And I’m going to go back to mowing the lawn.”
To be continued…
