Bright sunny skies, warm breezes, and smiles were on tap for Monday’s Happy Hour at Chez Ellie. I shut down all the heat sources in the house, opened windows, and swiped right on the sliding window on the screen door that leads to the back deck, saying a hearty yes to cross ventilation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We only refer to it as happy hour because we were happy; we had coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bees came out, too. While I frantically typed many words that later were cut by half by brutal attrition, I noted that the security camera on the front porch alerted me to the flying intruders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many hives are nearby, and I am constantly in the company of beautiful honey bees. We both emerge when the weather is reasonable, but I couldn’t go outside to recreate yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, they take every opportunity to be productive. I have a lot of respect for bees. None of them ask to work from home, and they rarely vacation somewhere warmer. Rise and shine is undoubtedly inscribed on a plaque hanging near their hives’ exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the cooler days, they land in sunbeams nearby, sitting and enjoying it like I do. They could be alarmed that flowers aren’t blooming, but this year’s weather confuses all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last autumn, many of them would stop by when I was working in the yard or cleaning out my truck. A few landed on my hands, taking a break from work. They showed no animosity to me, and I appreciated looking at them closely. I could hold them up to my face to look directly into theirs. It’s remarkable. I’ve been stung many times, but only by wasps and hornets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These bees give off a gentle vibe, and I imagine they are only here to make peace and maybe get verbal permission to raid my mother’s flower garden. My mom has since moved, and her flowers thrive, but nowhere as beautifully as when she was around tending daily, overseeing them for growth and overcrowding. The bees miss her, I am sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bees were channeling my youth when I would head to my friend’s house and knock loudly to inquire about taking a bike ride or walking to the school playground up the road to smash the tetherball for a few minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bees don’t make fists, so knocking was out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, they buzzed the cameras, setting off the sensor so I knew they were kicking off their early spring happy hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, it’s spring. It is not on your calendar, but March 1 is what the meteorologists go by. If we entertain twenty minutes out of every half hour of news programming for them to tell us it’s cloudy, we should trust them regarding the official seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy your day. If the bees show up today, I am going outside. I owe them that much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Jagged Edge of America, I remain,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bright sunny skies, warm breezes, and smiles were on tap for Monday’s Happy Hour at Chez Ellie. I shut down all the heat sources in the house, opened windows, and swiped right on the sliding window on the screen door that leads to the back deck, saying a hearty yes to cross ventilation. We only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-home-posts","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}